Driving forward: What’s the state of autonomous vehicles today?

Driving forward: What’s the state of autonomous vehicles today?

Autonomous vehicles are gradually finding their way onto our roads. Earlier this year, Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google's sister-company Alphabet, carried out successful trials of autonomous taxis in California, transporting over 6,200 people in the first month and many thousands since. They’re proving a practical business case for autonomous vehicles.

Also in the U.S., Walmart is using autonomous cargo vans to deliver groceries in Arizona, while Pizza Hut is working with Toyota on a driverless electric delivery vehicle that even has a mobile kitchen in it to cook pizzas en route to your house.

Renault is one traditional car manufacturer making great strides in autonomous vehicles. Having been the company behind the Symbol in 2017, the first vehicle designed for mind-off automation, Renault recently announced it was conducting tests of on-demand car services in Paris and partnering with Waymo to investigate driverless transportation possibilities to and from Charles de Gaulle Airport. Renault’s Valerie Pecresse has said that the company is “investing 100 million euros in autonomous vehicle infrastructure and [we hope] that we will be able to bring this project to a successful conclusion for the Paris Olympic Games.”

Tesla is also making big steps forward in taking autonomy into mainstream use, both in terms of real world use cases and potential monetization of self-driving technologies. Tesla has supplied customers with more than 780,000 vehicles since launching, the majority of which arrive with pre-installed, self-driving capabilities available to users who purchase the requisite software. Tesla autonomous vehicles have logged huge levels of miles driven since their introduction, growing from 0.1 billion miles in May 2016 to an estimated 1.88 billion miles as of October 2019.

Ford is another manufacturer with deployments already in play, with self-driving vehicles being tested in Pittsburgh, Palo Alto, Miami, Washington D.C. and Detroit, with Austin, Texas joining them soon. Together with its partner Argo AI, Ford has plans to trial its fleet of self-driving cars in Austin with a view towards launching a wider-reaching autonomous taxi and delivery service in 2021.

Autonomous vehicles in first gear

There are a few things slowing autonomous vehicle deployments, ranging from regulation issues to business models to the technology itself. In terms of regulation for example, Waymo might have demonstrated a viable autonomous taxi service for places in California and wants to deploy it more widely as soon as possible, but the state’s government isn’t making it simple: California has said Waymo has to offer the service for free. Some industry analysts see this attitude as jeopardizing California’s reputation as the world leader in driverless technology.

GM subsidiary Cruise, which GM bought for $1 billion in 2016, has also experienced delays to its deployments in New York, after safety concerns kept the company from gaining regulatory approval from the state government.

Read more: https://www.orange-business.com/en/blogs/driving-forward-whats-state-autonomous-vehicles-today