Austin City Council presented with update on driverless cars

AUSTIN, Texas - The City of Austin said Waymo is doubling its deployment zone. 

This comes after Tesla launched its competing Model Y Robotaxi's last month.

Driverless cars in Austin

Driverless cars can be ordered through Uber

Austin rideshare users can now be matched with a driverless vehicle on the Uber app.

City staff presented an update to Austin City Council members on self-driving vehicles on Thursday. It's the first city update since the Robotaxi launch.

Waymo has more than 100 cars operating in Austin, while Tesla has about 20 cars picking up riders. 

Dozens more are also being tested on roads, such as Zoox, Volkwagen, and Avride.

The most complicated part for the city is ticketing driverless cars for traffic and parking violations. Only three citations have been given so far. 

Austin is the only city in the country that issues tickets, which have to be handed to the courts because companies don't have a driver present. 

The city said driverless cars are still struggling to follow police officers' hand signals in traffic. 

The city is also working with state regulators, CapMetro, Austin ISD, and UT Austin about how to deal with self-driving cars.

What they're saying:

"If it's a public safety concern, just not doing it is not an option. The next best thing would have to be to have these companies incur that cost. We can't incur that cost for companies to be in compliance with our traffic regulations, which sounds like the conversation is bigger. Nobody else gets to operate without accountability on our roads," said Natasha Harper-Madison, Austin City Council member District 1. 

"Part of the conversation we're having is with the DPS regarding this bill. We've had suggestions about officers writing a citation directly to the company whether they leave the citation in the vehicle or they are able to email it. However, the case is where it can make that process like you said. I've heard that a lot without the juice being worth the squeeze of them having to go through this whole process just to cite the AV," said an Austin police officer.