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Today, a generation removed from Even before social distancing, has delivered a large dose of
the seminal 2004 Darpa challenge self-driving engineers were quietly humility to the world’s whip-
in which the U.S. military launched recalibrating expectations and smart mobility experts, who are
a fleet of fledgling robot cars pushing promised timelines back. showing an increased willingness
across the Mojave Desert, these to form posses and work together.
machines are still trying to get In early 2018, General Motors Co. The treasure hunt for self-driving
their licenses. It’s taking much pledged to have a fleet of self- riches is now dominated by
longer than initially promised, driving taxis in San Francisco by joint ventures. In some cases, a
but analysts expect autonomous 2020. While it unveiled a new technology company’s effort with
vehicles to mature quickly over the people-moving machine (sans an automaker is bankrolled by an
next decade. steering wheel) in January, institutional investor.
GM’s launch date for taking on
“The hype got ahead of the reality, passengers has been open-ended “Everyone had this vision of
but honestly, it’s gone way faster since summer 2019. grandeur,” Silberg said. “But there’s
than I would have ever believed,” very much a consensus that going
says Gary Silberg, a partner at Meanwhile, Daimler backed away it alone is not a smart strategy. For
KPMG. “I mean, it’s literally like from its pledge to put 10,000 some of these companies, you can
putting somebody on the moon. sentient taxis on the streets by think of the investment as a kind
It’s that complex.” 2021. Similarly, Tesla promised of put option on the self-driving
to have 1 million autonomous future.”
Meanwhile, the coronavirus has “robotaxis” on the road by the end
both strengthened the use case of last year. The automaker still It will likely be years before a hedge
for robot drivers and shuttered hopes to fulfill that vision by 2021. fund titan can load the dogs into
labs and factories where the a sentient SUV and command it to
technology was being refined. Several of the groups developing drive to her ski house.
There’s never been a better self-driving technology set
time for groceries or medicines their sights on 2021 for initial But self-driving cars are already
delivered by an algorithm on deployment, according to a recent charging fees in places such
wheels, though near-term report from Bloomberg New Energy as: sunny Phoenix, where Lyft
milestones will likely be delayed, Finance—and that was before customers order up Waymo
and the economic fallout from the the COVID-19 pandemic sidelined minivans; Texas, where Kroger
pandemic will undoubtedly force engineers. groceries are ferried around by
some companies to scrap their windowless, driverless pods from
autonomous skunkworks. To date, the only Nuro; and Florida, where Voyage
platform taking zips octogenarians around one of
Larry Burns, a former General passengers in fully the country’s largest retirement
Motors executive and co-author driverless vehicles communities.
of Autonomy: The Quest to Build
the Driverless Car, likens the race is Waymo, a Google Silberg calls these “islands of
to a marathon, with the industry spinoff. It is the sector’s autonomy,” relatively static
roughly at mile 15—and the presumed front-runner. areas that have been thoroughly
pandemic just put a massive hill scanned, mapped and stress-tested
in front of the field. “A cliff may be Weather has proved tricky, as by artificial intelligence algorithms.
a better analogy,” he said. “The have so-called edge cases, when In the next two years, they’ll start
strongest runners are still going to someone else on the road—be popping up all over the place, he
get over it. It will take them longer, it a driver, cyclist or electric reckons.
but there’s a chance they may be scooter pilot—does something
able to accelerate on the other unexpected, as humans often do.
side.” The halting nature of development

DRIVE A2B magazine · www.drivea2b.com.au · June 2020 21