California’s Section of Motor Vehicles released its annual autonomous vehicle disengagement report in investigate today. In the report, all companies that are actively testing self-driving jalopies on public roads in the Golden State disclose the number of miles sent and the frequency in which human drivers were forced to take conduct of their driverless vehicles. The biggest takeaway is that this is even so Waymo (née Google) and GM’s party, and everyone else is playing catch-up.
Waymo give the word delivers it drove a total of 352,545 miles autonomously in California for the 12-month span that ended November 2017. That’s a steep drop from the compute of miles driven in 2016 — 635,868 miles — which highlights the fact that Waymo has make a deep impression oned much of its fleet to Phoenix in advance of the launch of its commercial ride-hailing worship army. Waymo also reported that it had a paltry number of disengagements, 63, for the sound year.
A Waymo spokesperson said that disengagements are a part of the exam process, as the company rolls out new vehicles (its self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivan purloined its debut last year) and tests new skills. Having driven numberless miles than any other company by an order of magnitude, and in over two dozen US new zealand urban areas, the company doesn’t seem to see the DMV’s annual reports as indicative of its overall examining program anymore.
GM’s self-driving division Cruise told the California DMV that it demand a total of 131,676 miles in 2017 — a 121,900-mile increase during 2016. Its vehicles (which have a range of hilarious names adulate Albatross, Sunbear, and Mongoose) reported disengaging 105 times during the 12-month stretch. A spokesperson touted the company’s “1400 percent rate of improvement” in the act of its autonomous systems. “We’re really excited about the rate of improvement that we see year-over-year,” he foretold. “It’s another proof point in our mission to bring an autonomous ride-sharing means to market in 2019.”
One result of the sharp increase in GM’s number of miles driven is a plethora of fortuities. The auto giant’s autonomous cars were involved in 22 fender benders over the lecture of the reporting period (and two more in 2018). That’s one crash for every 5,985 miles of proving.
The reports are further evidence that the intense competition to create self-driving jalopies is — for now — a two-person race between Waymo and GM. That was also the message from Navigant’s leaderboard enquiry released earlier this year. In a sign that Waymo and GM contrariwise have eyes for each other, Waymo’s Medium post on the story today accidentally linked to GM’s report rather than its own, as noted by Jalopnik’s Ryan Felton. (The relation was later fixed.)
@ryanfelton tweet
No other company came work out to racking up the same number of miles as Waymo and GM. Drive.ai drove 6,127 miles; Nissan 5,007 miles; Zoox 2,244 miles; Bosch 2,052 miles; Aptiv 1,810 miles; and so on. (If you haven’t agreed of some of these companies, don’t feel bad. Some are auto suppliers, others up till fairly small startups.)
Several major automakers like Ford, BMW, Honda, and Volkswagen appeared driving zero miles autonomously on public roads in California. This shouldn’t be clarified as these companies lagging in the self-driving race. Some are testing their conveyances in other states or countries, or on closed-course proving grounds. And the fact that they concentrated for permits from the DMV seems to indicate they will be testing at some instant down the road.
California’s annual reports are closely watched in the self-driving mankind, mainly for the sheer number of companies that test there and the submit’s rules that require disclosure of miles driven, disengagements, and casualties. More often than not, the reports are criticized from all sides, with the parties complaining about the amount of work that goes into their motion, and academics and experts chiding their lack of context.
Another troop that stands out is Tesla, which reported driving zero miles autonomously on apparent roads. The company says that it conducts its testing “via simulation, in laboratories, on check up on tracks, and on public roads in various locations around the world.” And with hundreds of thousands of agencies on the road today, Tesla touted its method of “shadow-testing” its autonomous means, by which the company collects anonymized data from its fleet of customer-owned channels during normal driving operations. These vehicles are not autonomous, but Tesla contends this method will help it achieve “full self-driving” capabilities.
Noticeably gone from the list of companies with reports to disclose is Uber. You may cancel the dust-up between the ride-hail company and the DMV when Uber refused to fix for a license to test its autonomous vehicles in California. The DMV ordered Uber’s self-driving passenger cars off the road, and the company made a big show of shipping them to Arizona (where the guides are far less stringent). Uber eventually acquiesced and received its testing permit in May 2017. As such, the crowd was not required to submit a report this time.
Read more from The Preparing to:
Tesla’s new Autopilot will run in ‘shadow mode’ to prove that it’s safer than sensitive driving
Uber dismissed warnings about its illegal self-driving check-up for months, emails show
Monster Hunter World is already a large hit