A string of deaths involving cars with assisted-driving technology hasn’t slowed the race between giants in the tech and auto industries to bring a fully self-operating vehicle to the market.
Along with companies from Google to General Motors, the entrants include startups such as Argo and Aptiv, which are developing the technology to support ventures by Ford and ride-hailing company Lyft.
The businesses and their supporters say the technology could dramatically reduce the 37,461 deaths a year on U.S. highways and offer other benefits as well, such as a cheaper alternative for hospital transportation than taxis.
Industry watchers say there is no definitive front-runner yet, though some companies appear to have an edge and there’s far more than bragging rights at stake.
With a still-uncertain regulatory framework and questions lingering over how to create the infrastructure needed to widely support autonomous vehicles, “the first movers are going to shape the regulatory landscape to their advantage,” said Tim Carone, a professor at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “They are going to force everybody else to follow them.”
Waymo, the autonomous vehicle division of Google owner Alphabet Inc., announced last month it would buy as many as 62,000 new Fiat Chrysler automobiles as it works to launch its self-driving car service later this year. And Japanese-owned SoftBank said it would invest $2.25 billion in General Motor’s autonomous technology, which may begin a pilot program in San Francisco. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
States such as California and Pennsylvania are already vying for a piece of the action, allowing companies to use their public roads for tests. Construction began last year in Florida on a $42 million self-driving car test track, known as SunTrax, which will offer 2.25 miles of roadway on a 475-acre site.
“There’s this massive amount of competition from city governments, to state governments, to regional governments to countries — a competition in the hopes of attracting new jobs to their particular area,” said Lionel Robert, associate professor of information at the University of Michigan.
But despite the large uptick in trials, experts say the industry has done little to help quell fears over recent accidents or to increase public support for the technology, potentially part of a strategy to keep a low profile as product-testing continues.
“All the companies know that they are still flying a little bit below the radar,” Robert said. “The industry hasn’t engaged the public in the conversation. All the public is hearing about this technology is when there’s an accident and, of course, people become concerned,”
Earlier this year, one of Uber’s vehicles equipped with autonomous technology struck and killed a woman crossing the street in Tempe, Ariz. The company ended its tests in the state after Gov. Doug Ducey ordered a halt.
According to a preliminary report on the crash from the National Transportation Safety Board, the vehicle’s computer recognized the pedestrian six seconds before the crash but was unable to initiate an emergency maneuver because of a feature designed by Uber to “reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior.”
Separately, a 38-year old Apple engineer was killed in a March crash in Mountain View, Calif., just moments after activating Tesla’s Model X autopilot technology. In the aftermath of that incident, Tesla’s founder and chief executive officer Elon Musk criticized the news media for focusing too heavily on crashes involving autonomous vehicles.
“They shouldn’t really be writing the story, they should be writing the story about how autonomous cars are really safe, but that’s not the story that people want to click on,” he told investors. “So they write inflammatory headlines that are fundamentally misleading to the readers. It’s really outrageous.”
Several companies — including GM, Waymo and Ford — didn’t respond when asked if the recent crashes indicate that more-robust safety regulations are necessary.
“The industry needs to take a step back and work more on the simulation-based testing because people’s lives are at stake when you put these unproven technologies on the road,” said Chunming Qiao, chair of the department of computer science and engineering at the University at Buffalo.
Adding to the concerns is the lack of a clear regulatory framework to govern the emerging industry. One major question is how the federal government might oversee the vehicles’ computer systems.
“No one has really drilled down into how exactly that regulatory regime is implemented,” said Ryan Hagemann, senior director for policy at the Niskanen Center. “That’s still the big outstanding question in a lot of people’s minds.”
The House last year passed legislation that would require the Department of Transportation to launch safety-assessment certifications for automated vehicles and prevent any state from imposing regulations that go beyond the federal standard.
The self-driving legislation from Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune of South Dakota and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., that could be combined with the House bill is stalled in the chamber amid reservations from several lawmakers.
“We are concerned that the bill indefinitely preempts state and local safety regulations even if federal safety standards are never developed,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and four other Democratic senators wrote to Thune and Peters in March. “Until new safety standards are put in place, the interim framework must provide the same level of safety as current standards.”
In a recent op-ed on CNBC’s website, the main co-sponsors of the House bill pressured the Senate to act.
“Without a national policy, we could lose the opportunity to promote the safe deployment of self-driving cars and realize their full potential benefits,” Reps. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., wrote. “We need a federal framework that provides clear guidance to companies as they innovate while maintaining states’ and municipalities’ traditional roles in traffic safety and consumer protection.”
