April 22, 2019

A Quick Report Card on Self-Driving Cars

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I was just reading Atrios’s latest barb against Elon Musk’s “self-driving” Tesla—a subject we agree on—and got to wondering how Waymo is doing these days. I consider them the real bellwether for self-driving technology, but it’s been a few months since I checked in on them.

Long story short, Waymo announced last month that they’re building a second technical center in Chandler, Arizona, which will allow them to expand their commercial fleet. However, they’re still in pilot mode, with a safety driver behind the wheel at all times.

That’s about it. Steady but slow progress, and no one has died.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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