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The story
Taxi-hailing app GO, Google-affiliated Waymo, and Nihon Kotsu have announced plans to launch fully driverless taxi service in Tokyo sometime in 2027. Toru Hashimoto, the former mayor of Osaka, questioned on social media whether taxi companies could really commit to a business model that eliminates the need for human drivers. On 5ch, opinions were divided over who would be liable if an accident occurred during autonomous operation, hopes that the service could help ease the labor shortage, and how far the service area might eventually expand.
Toru Hashimoto on the driverless taxi plan: “Will taxi companies really commit to a robotaxi business that makes human drivers unnecessary?”
Toru Hashimoto (57), a lawyer and former governor of Osaka Prefecture who also served as mayor of Osaka City, posted on his social media on the 24th.
He was responding to the announcement that taxi-hailing app GO, Waymo (a subsidiary of Alphabet, the US parent company of Google), and major taxi operator Nihon Kotsu plan to launch Japan’s first fully driverless taxi service in Tokyo sometime in 2027.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
That's exactly why this won't take off. If the company that builds the automation bears full liability, nobody's going to do it.
Why not just follow the US model on that?
https://x.com/hirox246/status/2096134671910478229
Aren't you assuming personal ownership there? The feasibility of taxis versus private cars is completely different.
Sorry, but that's gotta be made up.
Sounds like construction-related fields have already started doing this, though only at large sites. If it works with taxis in Tokyo, a scaled-down version could work for rural bus routes too — though it seems there are separate plans in the works for rural areas.
Total Recall.
The bigger driver is the labor shortage — that's why they're rushing this. If it works out for taxis, you get a driver working 24 hours for free, and fares drop too — and this applies across every industry. Even pharmacies: if AI takes over, you don't need pharmacists. Tons of possibilities.
Yeah, there are a lot of problems. To safely run driverless vehicles you'd need 360° cameras on every road, bicycles linked to My Number [Japan's national ID system] with instant fines for violations — basically a full surveillance society, otherwise driverless cars will end up hitting people. And even after hitting someone, the driverless car would win in court.
Probably limited to major roads at first. If they lower the fare to match, there'll be demand.
Is this a story from the Showa era? No taxi company like that exists anymore.
If driverless vehicles succeed, you wouldn't even need buses anymore. There's already a reservation-based vehicle system being trialed in rural areas — something like pre-booked, shared-ride Hiace vans, so elderly people wouldn't have to walk to a bus stop.
It's also a legal issue. Unless operators get some degree of legal advantage even in cases where someone's killed, nobody's going to enter this market — a single fatality could wipe out years' worth of revenue.
With full automation there won't even be a driver's seat. That's how it is in America.
Yeah, feels like it's gonna happen, nya~
Hired cars, fixed-route light delivery vans, fixed-route buses, reservation-route tour buses, fixed-route logistics trucks — and there are separate plans for logistics too. If AI can automate jobs where human lives are directly on the line, then robots can handle pretty much any job.
That's actually a key point. The real fix is having every single vehicle be self-driving. It's been said for ages that if all vehicles operate under the same conditions, traffic jams wouldn't happen.
Just torch it with the flamethrower installed in the car for a quick cleanup, then it's the shortest route to the hospital.
If the passenger runs off, wouldn't they just report it to the police using the in-car camera footage?
There's a massive labor shortage anyway, so it should be fine. Might as well put them on logistics work too.
They can't fire existing employees, so wouldn't they just scale back hiring instead? Though I'm sure some companies will ignore labor law and fire people anyway.
Background and Key Points of Debate
Fully driverless “robotaxis” are already running commercially in the US, where Waymo has led the way in cities like San Francisco and Phoenix; the GO–Nihon Kotsu partnership essentially imports that technology to Japan. In Japan, the 2023 revision to the Road Traffic Act legally recognized Level 4 automation (fully autonomous driving under specific conditions), and pilot runs have been progressing in rural areas — but this would be the first time it’s introduced as a commercial taxi service in central Tokyo. Opinions in the thread split mainly over two points: who bears liability when an accident occurs, and whether operators other than taxi companies should be allowed to enter the market. Rules for compensation when a driverless vehicle causes a personal injury are still being worked out in many countries, and it’s unclear whether the US-style framework can simply be transplanted to Japan. Commenters also tended to conflate the very different cost structures of personally owned self-driving cars versus commercial taxis.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “Nihon Kotsu and two other companies announce fully driverless taxi plan… Toru Hashimoto: ‘Will taxi companies really commit to a robotaxi business that makes human drivers unnecessary?’“
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