TWO decades ago, the US military kicked off the race to build a self-driving car by sending a fleet of fledgling robot vehicles across the Mojave Desert in its seminal Darpa challenge. Ten years later, the auto industry was buzzing with predictions that self-driving cars would be all over the roads by now.
That has not happened. But the industry has started to put limited bits of automation, such as hands-free driving and crash-avoidance systems, into mass-produced models. Although these features have been promoted for their potential to make driving safer and easier, regulators are subjecting them to scrutiny after years of notable crashes, some of which resulted in fatalities.
Some companies have abandoned their autonomous vehicle efforts, citing excessive costs and complexity. Others are continuing to make progress, including Alphabet’s Waymo which this year expanded its driverless taxi service to a third major US city.
Elon Musk’s Tesla has failed repeatedly to realise its ambitious targets for autonomous vehicles. At a launch event on Oct 10 dubbed “We, Robot,” the company unveiled self-driving taxi prototypes including a two-seat sedan called Cybercab, and said production may start in 2026. But it did not explain how it would make the leap from selling advanced driver-assistance features to full autonomy.
What is the latest on driverless vehicles?
During the October event, Tesla also showcased a futuristic-looking Robovan concept that Musk said could transport as many as 20 people.
But Tesla has a track record of blowing past timelines Musk has offered for all manner of future products, and has had a particularly difficult time following through on his self-driving forecasts. The CEO told investors in 2019 that Tesla would have more than 1 million robotaxis on the road by the following year. The company hasn’t deployed a single autonomous vehicle in the years since.
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General Motors’ self-driving Cruise unit has also had problems. One of its robotaxis struck a pedestrian in San Francisco in 2023. GM’s handling of the crisis – company officials weren’t entirely forthcoming that the pedestrian was dragged by the car – led to California suspending its operating license. GM then halted Cruise’s service in the three states where it was operating and dismissed top executives.
The company was subjected to tougher oversight and had to pay a fine over the incident, which appears to have compromised plans to introduce a self-driving taxi in Tokyo in partnership with Honda Motor.
Nonetheless, GM announced in September it would resume driving robotaxis on public roads in California, and has been testing self-driving cars – accompanied by a human – in Texas and Arizona.
Among other positive developments in 2024, technology leaders such as China’s Baidu and Waymo are expanding services to new cities, with Alphabet in July announcing it would put US$5 billion more into the business.
In Texas, Aurora Innovation, Kodiak Robotics and Gatik AI expect to dispatch autonomous trucks by the end of the year, ditching human safety drivers after years of testing.
China has been a hotbed of innovation thanks to dozens of startups and robust regulatory support. Uber Technologies is partnering with Chinese autonomous car company WeRide to expand its robotaxi offering to the United Arab Emirates later this year.
What are the alternatives to full autonomy?
Advanced driver-assistance systems – known as ADAS – help drivers to park, stay in their lane and avoid objects using cameras, radar and other electronic sensors. They can alert drivers and in some cases briefly take control of the car to avoid collisions.
Automakers are increasingly offering these systems in their vehicles. One of the first lower-level automation offerings was the anti-lock braking system, introduced more than four decades ago, which is standard equipment now. More recent systems offer features such as emergency braking and automated parking.
How smart are such systems?
The industry categorises automation systems from Level 0 to 5. Level 0 features simply pass on information to the driver, like sounding a warning when you’re driving out of a traffic lane.
Tesla’s Autopilot is classified as Level 2 because it requires constant driver input and supervision, much in the way a pilot oversees certain automated systems in an airplane cockpit.
Mercedes-Benz Group AG is offering Level 3 autonomy – which requires neither hands on the steering wheel nor eyes on the road – in select vehicles under certain conditions in parts of Germany and the US.
Robotaxis that are being tested in confined areas of the US and China could be categorised as more advanced Level 4 systems, but these vehicles are limited in terms of where they can go. The pinnacle – which has yet to be achieved – would be Level 5 cars that can drive autonomously everywhere and in all conditions.
Who has embraced ADAS?
Virtually every major automaker has done so, with the fanciest systems reserved for higher-price vehicles. GM introduced Super Cruise, which allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel for brief periods, on the Cadillac CT6 starting in 2017. Mercedes’ flagship electric sedan, the EQS, comes with a feature that stops the car and makes an emergency call if the driver becomes incapacitated. Customers in the US can get the German carmaker’s Level 3 system called Drive Pilot by paying a US$2,500 annual subscription.
Volvo Car AB has made laser-based sensors known as lidar standard on its flagship electric sport utility vehicle, the EX90. The costly hardware – using technology the Apollo 15 astronauts employed to map the surface of the moon – is more capable of detecting a car’s surroundings than cameras are.
Chinese carmakers have been outfitting even lower-price vehicles with assisted-driving systems: BYD Co. offers automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assistance and other features in its roughly 100,000 yuan ($14,178) Dolphin sedan. The EV maker recently introduced what it calls Navigation on Autopilot, which allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel and feet off the pedals in certain scenarios.
What are the advantages of limited autonomy?
There are a few:
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Auto-safety regulators in the US see so much potential in automatic emergency-braking systems that they’ve decided to mandate them as standard equipment for new cars beginning in 2029.
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Keeping humans involved isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sure, people may tend to make more mistakes than a computer, but it’s good to have an actual person ready to intervene if the technology fails.
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Driverless ethics are a tricky subject, considering that robot cars would have to make life-or-death decisions in some scenarios.
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Autonomous driving is far more difficult and expensive to commercialise at scale, requiring many billions of dollars in capital.
What are some of the issues with ADAS?
Fatal crashes involving ADAS attract a lot of attention, especially if Tesla is involved. Musk argues that Autopilot saves lives, but he’s used questionable data to make his case. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)has opened dozens of investigations into crashes involving ADAS since 2016, most of them involving Teslas.
A probe into cars operating via Tesla’s Autopilot colliding with fire trucks and police cars at crash scenes culminated in Tesla deploying a software fix to more than 2 million vehicles – its biggest recall ever – after NHTSA determined the company hadn’t done enough to guard against driver misuse. A few months later, NHTSA started investigating whether Tesla’s remedy was sufficient.
Another issue: When humans are still making most of the decisions, bad behavior can creep in. Drivers misuse adaptive cruise control for speeding, possibly undermining the feature’s safety benefits, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found in a 2022 study. Automakers’ own engineers also have dozed off during testing – babysitting a robot in boring traffic can be a monotonous task, after all.
Who has abandoned full autonomy?
Ford Motor and Volkswagen AG shut down their self-driving business Argo AI in October 2022, a dramatic turn of events for a business that had more than 2,000 workers and for a time was considering an initial public offering. Ford, which wrote down its US$2.7 billion investment in Argo, formed a new unit to focus on ADAS features. VW’s CEO Oliver Blume later axed Audi’s plans for a self-driving vehicle because of slow progress. Apple sank billions into trying to develop a vehicle with Level 4 or even Level 5 capability before deciding in February to shut down its car project. Several smaller driverless-car startups have gone under.
Where is this headed?
In 2015, Ford’s then-CEO Mark Fields predicted that self-driving cars would be on the road in five years. A year later, Musk said Tesla would demonstrate a fully autonomous Los Angeles-to-New York trip by the end of 2017 – another goalpost that came and went. A true self-driving car – Level 5 – won’t be available before 2035, and probably not for some time after that, S&P Global Mobility said in September 2023. BLOOMBERG
