Campfire’s octopus, chorizo, and celery-root entrée.
Gage Forster
San Diego, CA
What’s with those weird-looking cars on San Diego streets?
There’s another tech company tooling around San Diego.
Nuro, an autonomous driving technology company based in Silicon Valley, has deployed a test car onto the streets of Hillcrest, Little Italy, Bankers Hill and portions of downtown and Golden Hill.
The vehicle is not driverless; the Toyota Prius hybrid that Nuro is using has a human behind the wheel who is trained to operate it.
Equipped with sensors that include radar, lidar and cameras on the roof, the car is collecting data as part of a larger testing program Nuro has in place in selected cities across the country to help accelerate a self-driving future.
The vehicle gathers virtually countless data inputs such as traffic lights, stop signs, driving patterns and safety points, and then process the information “into a single view of the world around it,” said David Salguero, Nuro’s head of communications.
“The cars have onboard processing and storage, and then we use cloud computing to take that data and train our model,” he said.
Nuro chose San Diego as one of its test sites because the city combines urban, coastal and residential neighborhoods with a transportation network that serves drivers, cyclists, pedestrians and public transit.
But that does not mean the company has plans to launch autonomous service in the San Diego area.
Rather, Nuro makes money by developing self-driving tech and then licensing it to automakers and mobility platforms. Those partners then make the decision whether to bring autonomous driving — be it commercial fleets, robotaxis or even personal car services — into a given area.
In cities such as San Diego, “we are starting to build the foundation so that if and when our partners want to deploy there, we’ve already laid a lot of the groundwork,” Salguero said. “It’s kind of like digging the well before you’re thirsty, as it were.”
Nuro’s work thus far is highly targeted, so it only requires a single vehicle in San Diego that will operate for about 10 days, covering a focused five-square-mile area.
“We’ll be back for the next stage of testing down the line and will have more to share then,” Salguero said.
At least one other autonomous driving company has also taken to the streets of San Diego.
Waymo earlier this year started conducting test drives with humans behind the wheel in similar neighborhoods, as well as Route 163 and Interstate 5.
“This testing will show us where we should further tune our perception models before expanding to new cities,” a spokesperson for the Bay Area company owned by Google parent Alphabet Inc., told the Union-Tribune in February.
Waymo has already deployed driverless cars/taxis in parts of San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Phoenix and Los Angeles but the company has not announced any plans to roll out service in the San Diego area.
“This testing will show us where we should further tune our perception models before expanding to new cities,” the Waymo spokesperson said.
Waymo rides are also available in Atlanta and Austin, Texas, through the Uber app, and the company has announced plans to expand to Miami and Washington D.C.
Autonomous driving has moved from concept to reality in recent years, with many transportation experts predicting a revolutionary change in the auto industry.
Tesla has implemented autopilot and self-driving features on its vehicles that include traffic-aware cruise control, semi-autonomous navigation, response to traffic lights and the ability to summon the car from a parking space. Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he’s staking his company’s future on investments in robotics, autonomous vehicles technology and artificial intelligence.
Supporters of self-driving technology say it allows drivers who, for instance, are stuck in traffic jams to spend their time on more productive tasks. Plus, autonomy can provide access to consumers who otherwise may not have access to reliable transportation.
“For example, many folks are approaching their 80s or people who at some point are no longer able to drive but live in a suburb where you have to rely on an automobile to get around,” Salguero of Nuro said. “At a certain point when autonomy is more ubiquitous and reasonably priced, they can either rely on robotaxis or on autonomous solutions in their own vehicle to get them where they need to go. That’s the vision we see for the future.”
Backers also predict an autonomous future will improve road safety and help prevent car accidents. But some consumers are leery.
Tesla is facing dozens of lawsuits tied to its autopilot and self-driving features. Last month, Waymo issued a recall after a glitch in part of its self-driving software reportedly caused some vehicles to crash into low-visibility barriers like chains and gates. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the problem affected 1,212 vehicles.
A survey released by AAA in February said that six in 10 drivers in the U.S. are afraid to ride in self-driving vehicles — although the percentage who say they are fine riding in them increased from 9% last year to 13% this year.
“For Nuro specifically, we do a lot of testing, we do a lot of validation and we do so much work before our cars are ever out on public streets,” Salguero said. “Safety’s really at the core of everything we do … So the one thing I would say to that person who was worried about self-driving cars is that it is up to Nuro and the industry to earn that trust from them.”
Salguero said Nuro’s vehicles have logged 1.2 million miles in auto-mode without any at-fault incidents.
Created in 2016 and counting about 700 employees, Nuro raised $106 million in its latest funding round, boosting its valuation to about $6 billion.
Waymo, after banking $5.6 billion in fresh capital last November, is currently valued at more than $45 billion.
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Solans, Luna, Guilavogui help RSL beat slumping San Diego, extend unbeaten streak to 6 games :: WRALSportsFan.com
SANDY, Utah — SANDY, Utah (AP) — Sergi Solans had two goals and an assist, Diego Luna added a goal and two assists, and Real Salt Lake beat San Diego FC 4-2 on Saturday night to extend its unbeaten streak to six games.
Morgan Guilavogui scored his first goal in MLS and had an assist for Real Salt Lake (5-1-1). The 28-year-old designated player has five goal contributions in his first six career games.
RSL hasn’t lost since a 1-0 defeat at Vancouver in the season opener.
San Diego (3-3-2) has lost three in a row and is winless in five straight.
Luna opened the scoring in the fifth minute when he re-directed a misplayed pass by Duran Ferree, San Diego’s 19-year-old goalkeeper, into the net.
Moments later, Solans headed home a perfectly-placed cross played by Luna from outside the right corner of the 18-yard box to the back post to make it 2-0. Solans, a 23-year-old forward, flicked a header from the center of the area inside the right post and past the outstretched arm of Ferree to make it 3-1 in the 37th minute.
Guilavogui slammed home a first-touch shot to give RSL a three-goal lead in the 45th.
Marcus Ingvartsen scored a goal in the 14th minute and Anders Dreyer converted from the penalty spot in the 66th for San Diego.
Ingvartsen has five goals and an assist this season and has 10 goal contributions (seven goals, three assists) in 16 career MLS appearances.
Rafael Cabral had three saves for RSL.
Ferree finished with five saves.
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/soccer
When John Resnick opened Campfire on a quaint little street in Carlsbad, Calif., in 2016, some locals weren’t sure what to think. The coastal enclave wasn’t exactly awash in innovative, chef-driven establishments, so it was a shock to see the dining room consistently full. Early on, one woman wondered aloud to Resnick, “Where did all these people come from?”
It’s a moment he remembers vividly. “I was struck by her statement, because I think she was surprised that so many other people in Carlsbad were there,” Resnick says.
The rest of the culinary world would take some time to catch up to what was happening. In 2019, when Michelin expanded to rate restaurants throughout all of California—not just the San Francisco area—Addison was the only one in San Diego to earn a star. But since emerging from the pandemic, the region’s food scene has grown dramatically. Driven by outstanding farms, ingredients, a bumper crop of talented chefs, and a G.D.P. approximately the size of New Zealand or Greece, San Diego County has become one of America’s most underrated dining destinations.
Perhaps no single restaurant is a better emblem for this shift than chef William Bradley’s Addison, which opened in 2006. After landing his first star, Bradley knew he wanted more. To get them, he transformed his French-leaning fare to serve what he calls California Gastronomy, which combines the cultures of SoCal with impeccable ingredients and wildly impressive techniques, prizing flavor over flair. Michelin responded, awarding Addison a second star in 2022, and making it the first Southern California three-star restaurant just a year later. The accolade has created a halo effect, attracting culinary tourists from around the world.
Berry beet tartlets at San Diego’s three-star stalwart Addison.
Eric Wolfinger
“Earning three stars forces the global dining community to pay attention to a place that may not have been on their radar before,” says chef Eric Bost, a partner in Resnick’s four Carlsbad establishments.
Resnick recruited Bost, who spent time at award-winning outposts of Restaurant Guy Savoy, to run Jeune et Jolie, which he led to a star in 2021. They’ve since taken over an old boogie-board factory down the street and converted it to an all-day restaurant and bakery, Wildland. The space also hosts an exquisite tasting-counter experience called Lilo, which was given a Michelin star mere months after opening in April 2025. And as Resnick and Bost grew their successful Carlsbad operation, chef Roberto Alcocer earned a Michelin star for his Mexican fine-dining spot Valle in nearby Oceanside.
The stylish tasting counter at Michelin one-star Lilo in Carlsbad.
Kimberly Motos
About 25 miles to the south, another affluent coastal community is going through its own culinary glow up. In La Jolla, chef Tara Monsod and the hospitality group Puffer Malarkey Collective opened the stylish French steakhouse Le Coq. Chef Erik Anderson, formerly of Michelin two-star Coi, is preparing to launch Roseacre. And last year, Per Se alums Elijah Arizmendi and Brian Hung left New York to open the elegant tasting-menu restaurant Lucien, lured by the ingredients they’d get to serve. “A major reason we chose San Diego is the quality and diversity of the produce,” Arizmendi explains. “San Diego County has more small farms than anywhere else in the U.S., and its many microclimates allow farmers to grow an incredible range of ingredients year-round.”
Wildland’s spicy Italian sandwich.
Gage Forster
Chef Travis Swikard has also been a tireless advocate for the region’s ingredients since he returned to San Diego, his hometown, and opened Mediterranean-influenced Callie in 2021. There’s no sophomore slump with his latest effort, the French Riviera–inspired Fleurette in La Jolla, where he’s serving his take on classics like leeks vinaigrette and his San Diego “Bouillabaisse” with local red sheepshead fish and spiny lobster. Its food is bright, produce-driven, and attentive in execution, while the dining room maintains a relaxed and unpretentious style of service. And Swikard sees that approach cohering into a regional style with a strong network of professionals behind it.
“It’s really nice that we are developing our own identity, not trying to be like L.A. or any other market, just highlighting what’s great about the San Diego lifestyle and ingredients,” he says. “Similar to New York, a chef community is starting to develop where chefs are supporting each other. There is a true sense of pride to be cooking here.”
Top: In La Jolla, Lucien serves ocean whitefish with tomatoes turned into concasse, sabayon, and other expressions.
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