The Recall That Wasn’t
Waymo just pulled the plug on nearly four thousand robotaxis. Not a big recall, really, in automotive history, but it matters here. Three thousand eight hundred seventy-one units. That’s the number.
They’re heading home from the streets.
The feds are mad. Or at least, they’re not happy. These machines are doing something weird: they’re ignoring construction zones. Worse, they might actually speed into them.
How does a self-driving car fail to see orange cones? You’d think it was easy. Apparently, the system gets distracted by other “hazards” first. Or maybe it just doesn’t register that a lane is closed. Either way, the result is bad.
There’s a free ride quirk, too. A regulatory delay from the state means Ojai customers can hop into these bots without paying. For a few months, at least. A gift from bureaucracy.
It might not feel all that different from the World Cup you remember—for better or worse.
The Waymo “World Cup” is happening. Not a tournament, obviously, but a showcase. And yes, it probably feels familiar. Maybe too familiar.
The Tesla Trap
Then there’s Tesla. Always Tesla.
A woman died in Texas. It was a crash involving a Tesla. Now comes the legal fight: did Full Self-Driving (Supervised) play a role? Note the word Supervised. The driver should have been paying attention. Did they? We’ll find out in court.
But that’s not the only trick.
In China, drivers are cheating. Tiny plastic heads. Celebrity figurines. Blinking screens. A whole cottage industry of DIY gadgets designed to fool the car into thinking someone is watching. It’s absurd. And it’s working.
And speaking of theft, Tesla batteries are disappearing. Nine major heists in one month at their Nevada factory. The trucks don’t even leave the premises before the cargo is gone. Sheriff’s records say so. WIIRD confirmed it. It’s a logistical nightmare waiting to happen.
Meta’s Dark Tests
Meta thinks it can fix its PR problems with an AI Hackathon.
The employees hate it. “I’m not sure this company supports a hackathon culture,” one staffer wrote. That sentiment spread. Fast.
But while employees grumble about fun games, contractors are doing something else entirely.
Posing as teens. Pretending to be kids. Hundreds of Meta workers fed prompts about suicide, sex, and drugs to rival chatbots. Gemini. ChatGPT. They were stress-testing the competition. Or spying. It feels less like innovation and more like a witch hunt for edge cases.
“I’m not sure that this company supportsa hackathon culture anymore.”
Is it worth the backlash? Maybe not. But someone asked the question.
Power Grids and Paperwork
General Motors wants your electric car to save your neighborhood.
Literally. GM is flipping on vehicle-to-grid charging. Your car becomes a battery for the house. For the block. The question isn’t whether it works, it’s whether anyone will turn it on.
Polestar has a different problem.
They lost a legal fight. A federal denial meant they can’t sell cars in the US next year. At least not through the new dealerships they invested in. The Chinese tech ban looms. The law killed the deal. No neat bow on that package.
Speaking Up Gets You Fired
Amazon workers aren’t staying quiet either. Three software engineers are under investigation. They talked. They wrote. They shared political beliefs about data centers.
Seattle’s civil rights office has the complaint. They accuse Amazon of retaliation. Illegal retaliation, they say.
You build a server farm. You speak your mind. Then HR comes knocking.
It’s a messy era. Cars miss signs. Employees leak tests. Trucks get looted. Batteries go dark.
And nobody has the final word yet.
