The hype around driverless cars came crashing down in 2018
Self-driving technology seemed to be right around the corner. But then the industry was battered by bad news.
In March, Uber was forced to drastically scale back its testing activities after an Uber vehicle hit and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. The same month, a Tesla customer died when his Autopilot-enabled Model X car slammed into a concrete lane divider.
Waymo hasn't suffered such a catastrophic event. But its long-promised December launch of a commercial service in Phoenix, called Waymo One, was a disappointment. Waymo canceled plans to offer a fully driverless service, leaving safety drivers behind the wheel. And Waymo only offered the service to people who were already in Waymo's closed testing program. Waymo has long been seen as the industry leader, but its halfhearted launch raised questions about how much progress it has really made.
