Read an article the other day on the progress in self-driving cars in NewsAtlas (DMV reports self-driving cars are learning — fast). More details are available from their source (CA [California] DMV [Dept. of Motor Vehicles] report).
The article reported on what’s called disengagement events that occurred on CA roads. This is where a driver has to take over from the self-driving automation to deal with a potential mis-queue, mistake, or accident.
Waymo (Google) way out ahead
It appears as if Waymo, Google’s self-driving car spin out, is way ahead of the pack. It reported only 124 disengages for 636K mi (~1M km) or ~1 disengage every ~5.1K mi (~8K km). This is ~4.3X better rate than last year, 1 disengage for every ~1.2K mi (1.9K km).
Competition far behind
Below I list some comparative statistics (from the DMV/CA report, noted above), sorted from best to worst:
- BMW: 1 disengage 638 mi (1027 km)
- Ford: 3 disengages for 590 mi (~950 km) or 1 disengage every ~197 mi (~317 km);
- Nissan: 23 disengages for 3.3K mi (3.5K km) or 1 disengage every ~151 mi (~243 km)
- Cruise (GM) automation: had 181 disengagements for ~9.8K mi (~15.8K km) or 1 disengage every ~54 mi (~87 km)
- Delphi: 149 disengages for ~3.1K mi (~5.0K km) or 1 disengage every ~21 mi (~34 km);
There was no information on previous years activities so no data on how competitors had improved over the last year.
Please note: the report only applies to travel on California (CA) roads. Other competitors are operating in other countries and other states (AZ, PA, & TX to name just a few). However, these rankings may hold up fairly well when combined with other state/country data. Thousand(s) of kilometers should be adequate to assess self-driving cars disengagement rates.
Waymo moving up the (supply chain) stack
In addition, according to a Recode, (The Google car was supposed to disrupt the car industry) article, Waymo is moving from a (self-driving automation) software supplier to a hardware and software supplier to the car industry.
Apparently, Google has figured out how to reduce their sensor (hardware) costs by a factor of 10X, bringing the sensor package down from $75K to $7.5K, (most probably due to a cheaper way to produce Lidar sensors – my guess).
So now Waymo is doing about ~65 to ~1000 X more (CA road) miles than any competitor, has a much (~8 to ~243 X) better disengage rate and is moving to become a major auto supplier in both hardware and software.
It’s going to be an interesting century.
If the 20th century was defined by the emergence of the automobile, the 21st will probably be defined by dominance of autonomous operations.
Comments?
Photo credits: Substance E′TS; and Waymo on the road
