Companies with a permit to test autonomous vehicles in California with a safety driver reported their technologies drove nearly 2.9 million miles during the most recent reporting period, according to disengagement reports recently submitted to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
The 60 annual reports submitted to the DMV summarize the disengagements reported during testing and reveal test vehicles traveled approximately 2.88 million miles in autonomous mode on California’s public roads during the reporting period – an increase of more than 800,000 miles from the previous reporting cycle.
The reports include the total number of disengagements, the circumstances or testing conditions, the location, and the total miles traveled in autonomous mode on public roads for each permit holder. Disengagements can occur when a failure of the technology is detected or when the safety driver needs to take control of the vehicle. The reports provide insights on a company’s testing activities in California but are not intended to compare one company with another or reach broad conclusions on technological capabilities.
Twenty-four permit holders reported they did not test autonomous vehicles on California public roads. Two companies failed to file the annual report and were subject to permit revocation following a 15-day written notice from the DMV. Effective today, the DMV has revoked their testing permits.
Under California’s current regulations, companies are not required to report testing on private roads/test tracks, testing that occurs out of state, testing below SAE Level 3 or testing done in simulation. The regulations require submitting an annual report to the DMV every January 1. The first report a company provides covers the period from when the permit was issued to November 30 of the following year. Subsequent reports provide details from December 1 to November 30 of each year.
Currently, 64 companies have valid permits to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver on California public roadways. One company has a permit for driverless testing. All active permit holders that received authorization prior to 2019 were required to submit a disengagement report by January 1, 2020. Six companies that received a permit in 2019 will submit their first report by January 1, 2021.
QUESTION: Would you feel safe driving in an autonomous vehicle?
Perhaps in a next life, not in this one.
Work around people who write code for complex industrial control for a production line capable of over 6,000 feet per minute. There a couple I wouldn’t trust to automate a flush toilet.
I agree, but I’m curious what kind of production line runs at over 100 ft/sec or ~68 MPH.
Maybe the key word(s) are “…capable of…”
Whether it actually DOES is another thing.
Not on a bet. Two reasons. Reason #1: driver reaction to events needs to be near-instantaneous, which means any ‘intelligence’ needs to exist within the automobile itself… relying on wireless connections to a cloud-based server would be too slow (and subject to disconnects) for real world. Reason #2: there are WAY too many scenarios to program; you’d have to ensure you accounted for all of them, and you have to be able to have them work at the same speed as the human brain. We’re nowhere close to that point.
That’s the beauty of the human brain ain’t it. Just tell it “don’t hit anything” and off you go. As for riding in one of these vehicles no way. Except in Disneyland where they are all following fixed tracks.
Not on my life. Even the tests have proven they are not strictly safe.
Does anyone know what happens if vehicle’s computer system freezes up, does the windshield turn blue ? ? ?
If you are too lazy to drive your car take the bus. I do not want to be on the road with a car that can screw up as much as my computer.
I wouldn’t mind trying one but I would need to be able to override it easily. But I think the day of “private transportation” is coming to a close. It’s wasteful but we have it in the US because the place is so vast and then the auto companies worked on getting rid of “trolleys” which were “light rail” so they could sell buses and cars. So we may need to take away the hiking trails around the Bay Area which were once trolley lanes to institute light rail.
Answer to question: Not yet.
Don’t think so. My car has WiFi and GPS for the OnStar system and somebody has hacked the instrument panel. They nag me to get oil changes every 3000 miles by turning on various instrument panel warning lights. I’ve had my mechanic check it out, and they are false alerts — nothing is actually wrong. And, if this self-driving stuff is as lreliable as any other computer devise I’ve used, I’d have to say “No Thanks.”
Not yet, but soon. It’s developing faster than you think. By 2030 we’ll have L4+ autonomy.
People rather have their faces In their I Phones rather than paying attention to driving.
Okay so here’s my questions. What do we do when our car faced with an imminent no-win accident scenario makes a decision and kills someone? And loved ones hear a computer decided whether their loved one lived or died? Now skip ahead a generation or two, and same scenario only this time my car knows the credit rating of all potentially impacted party’s. How’s that gonna go? Maybe you have a sister is kinda too Liberal for her own good but you love her to death, and the ‘gubmnt don’t like that so much and a smart car kills her in that same scenario because of some social worth index score they keep. How’s that gonna go?
You’ll say nonsense Atticus, what you been smoking? I say it’s inevitable given time. Not because we should, mind you, because at some point we will be able to. Data and who uses it and how they use it will be the fate of mankind. Or maybe I’m wrong. Bet I’m not though. 🤪
Wouldn’t one would be a passenger rather than a driver in an autonomous vehicle?
I don’t trust them and don’t want one. I don’t want an electric car either. Or an automatic transmission. Or cruise control. About the only driver aid I’m OK with is anti-lock brakes.
Another question is that of autonomous airline travel. Airline pilots are VERY well paid and there is work going on to only have one pilot and in case of an emergency have a flight attendant with enough training to turn on the automatic system to fly the airplane to an autonomous landing. Most new airliners have auto-land systems and have had for many years, however they require the pilot(s) to manage it.
The next step is no pilot and autonomous flight from gate to gate.
So, here is the question: Would you get on an airliner with one or no pilot?
Not me!