Why it’s so hard to make a reliable self-driving car
The promised rollout of fully autonomous vehicles remains largely unfulfilled, with every advance seemingly matched by a serious setback. Companies still making progress are proceeding with caution.
A Waymo authonomous taxi in San Francisco. The company is making the biggest strides in self-driving vehicles for now. Bloomberg
Two decades ago, the US military kicked off the race to build self-driving cars by sending a fleet of fledgling robot vehicles across the Mojave Desert in its Darpa challenge. By 2015, autonomous vehicle technology was being widely pursued, and the industry was abuzz with predictions that driverless cars would soon be everywhere.
It didn’t happen. Some legacy car makers and start-ups abandoned their efforts, citing excessive costs and complexity. Regulators stepped up scrutiny of the emerging technology after crashes involving cars equipped with partial-automation systems.
