And it is not always spoken for good. Because as soon as an autonomous car has an accident the news about it appears in all the media within a few seconds. This is what happened to Cruise not long ago, and they had to stop operating in California, and lay off part of his staff.
It is not easy to take an even-handed stance on this issue, especially when it comes to human lives, but we must be aware of the thousands of people who die every day due to driver failures at the front wheel. And that is the reality we have and from which we must start.
There are many people working to try to get an autonomous car, and some companies have presented their new products at this year's CES in 2024. Many of them are start-ups that are trying to gain a foothold in a future market that everyone promises is excellent, but that just does materialize.
Today there are already a few thousand autonomous cars offering taxi services in both the USA and Asia, and especially in China. But to be in that market niche you need to have a lot of capital to last for many years without generating profits, as is the case with Waymo.
Photo by Roberto Nickson
As, on the other hand, safety measures are being included in many high- and medium-priced cars, it is clear that the market is going to continue down that path, and car manufacturers will offer increasingly better “aids” to driving, but without reaching total autonomous driving (level 4 and 5 of autonomous driving), so as not to be involved in possible lawsuits in the event of accidents.
It is the “taxis” niche where new companies will appear (in addition to Waymo) that offer autonomous taxi services, and that will be limited to more or less large cities. In China there are some of them operating, which are not well known in the West, but they could make the leap at any time.
I have seen the statements of a person in charge of the Valeo Group (Christophe Perillat) who says that by 2030, 90% of the vehicles manufactured will have driving aids, the majority with Driving Levels 2 and 2+, and a few million vehicles with Levels 3 or perhaps 4.
Given that Level 4 assumes autonomous driving, it is possible that there will be thousands of vehicles, rather than millions. Because there are other “experts” who predict this leap for the year 2035.
But ultimately these are opinions, which vary over time, and what is certain is that Waymo has been working on this issue since 2005, and I believe they are the most experts on this topic. And although they now make some money with their autonomous taxi services in various cities in the USA, they are very far from making a profit.
If one day they earn real money, they will more than deserve it.
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