Don’t Ask When Self-Driving Cars Will Arrive—Ask Where
In 2018, sharp observers of self-driving vehicles may have noticed that a few of the things have arrived. While most are still testing, only allowing employees inside—including Uber, Ford, Argo, Aurora, and Cruise—this year also saw the 25,000th passenger trip provided by a collaboration between Aptiv and Lyft, which uses a handful of autonomous vehicles to ferry riders around Las Vegas. Also this year: Autonomous shuttle companies May Mobility, Optimus Ride, and Navya beckoned members of the public aboard in Columbus, Ohio; the suburbs of Boston; and Vegas. Just this month, Waymo launched a driverless service in the Phoenix area, if a limited one.
This body of evidence should help you understand the nuanced answer to an increasingly common question.
“We get asked, ‘When are we going to see these cars?’ My answer is, essentially, ‘It depends where you live,’” says Karl Iagnemma, Aptiv’s president of automotive mobility. “If you’re in Vegas today, you see them all over the place. Other cities, it’s going to be a long, long time.”
That’s the not-so-whispered secret of self-driving. Most developers believe it will take decades to build a car that can drive anywhere it pleases, likes humans do today—if it ever happens at all. “I think it’s possible, but there’s no way to predict when that’s going to be,” says Ryan Chin, the CEO and cofounder of the cheekily-named Boston-based AV company Optimus Ride.
