Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Wednesday, Jan. 7.
John Krafcik knows a thing or two about robotaxis — and his hunch is that they're a long way from largely bumping cars out of people's driveways.
The former leader of Waymo's autonomous vehicle program and veteran automaker executive was at CES yesterday to receive the Automotive Hall of Fame's 2026 Mobility Innovator Award, Laurence Iliff reports from Las Vegas.
His assessment: "The idea that we'll have personal robotaxis in our driveway in two years is silly." However, he said, "assisted driving systems are getting much better, and I really like that."
He had a few choice words for Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, for promising fully autonomous vehicles for years without delivering them to customers: "It's been 10 years, that's a decade of broken promises. There should be some accountability for that, I believe."
Tesla is testing robotaxis with safety drivers in Austin, Texas, and Musk has said his company will soon challenge market leader Waymo, which has deployed in several U.S. cities with fully driverless vehicles.
For more viewpoints from Krafcik, read Iliff's report here.
For a full roundup of all the automotive activity at CES, check out our team's live blog.
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— Omari Gardner, managing editor, operations
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