Ford taps the brakes on the arrival of self-driving cars
Ford CEO Jim Hackett, on Tuesday, joined the growing rank of vehicle and engineering experts willing to tell the public that self-driving cars are not coming up as soon as anyone had hoped.
The industry "overestimated the arrival of autonomous vehicles," Hackett told the Detroit Economic Club. Although Ford does not shy away from its self-imposed due date of 2021 for its first purpose-built driverless car, Hackett acknowledged that the vehicle's "applications will be narrow, what we call geo-fenced, because the problem is so complicated." Bloomberg previously reported comments.
Hackett is the latest high-grade industry insider to engage in public sanctions on the prospect of self-driving cars, which in 201[ads1]6 seemed just around the corner. Less than three years ago, Uber showed a limited self-service in Pittsburgh. Google spun out its driverless vehicle program in a company called Waymo, and Nissan held on to its promise of 2013 (by a very secure Carlos Ghosn) that it would debut a self-propelled car by 2020. Also in 2016, General Motors bought the self-propelled technology company Cruise Automation for a reported $ 580 million. And then Ford CEO Mark Fields says the company would have thousands of fully autonomous vehicles available for urban car-share and ride-hail fleets by 2021.
Now, Hackett and others recognize the industry's marketing and media headlines -We've come to the technology . Today Exec's fewer and fewer promises when self-driving comes.
In November, John Krafcik, CEO, said that "autonomy will always have some limitations" and suggested that a self-propelled car that could really go anywhere can never materialize. Although Waymo's limited self-driving service in suburban Phoenix is slowly expanding locally, the company still puts the operators behind the wheel for safety. "Driverless" is a stretch. The top technology head at Nissan's Silicon Valley Development Center, now publishing the public pooh-poohs concept of completely driverless cars, insisted last month that "an autonomous system without a human in the loop" is "a useless system". (Former CEO Ghosn has been arrested again by Japanese authorities.)
After a crash test during the killing of an Arizona woman last year, Uber is back to limited testing in Pittsburgh, with two onboard operators. In a Reuters interview this week, Raquel Urtasun, chief investigator in charge of Uber's self-buying question, called the question of when the rogue cars are going to arrive at the "billion dollar question." "And the first thing I learned is no timelines, right?" She said.
Urtasun echoes an emotion increasingly popular with self-propelled developers: It is not when self-propelled cars come, but there . Right now, the technology is designed to work in specific contexts – the wide, sunny roads of Arizona, or the chaos of Boston, or the sunny streets of Miami or the vast suburbs of San Jose. As if she had expected Hackett's comments, Urtasun said that self-driving should start in small areas and then we should grow from small areas to everywhere. The challenge is to make the transition as smooth as possible. "The Termination: Unless you are in one of the small areas, do not hold your breath for a self-driving car.
On the other hand, others Detroit carmaker, General Motors, is maintained so recently as in November that it is "on track" to roll out an autonomous vehicle this year, even though it has not said where its first limited service will be. The company refused to comment on Hackett's statement.
What is so complicated about full self-drive? There are no federal regulations for the technology, and states have struggled to fill the gap with their own test rules. Secondly, industry insiders say that sensors need to be better at "seeing" more cheaply before the technology can be widely distributed. better algorithms, those that can cope with the uncertainty of new traffic situations without harming the load.
Meanwhile, Ford says it still plans to distribute an autonomous vehicle, is some commercial service by 2021, in more than one American city. Together with Argo AI, where it has a majority stake, Detroit carmaker is tested in Michigan, Miami and Pittsburgh. Hackett has also outlined his plan to create a broader "mobility platform" – an operating system that will help cities steer self-driving cars when they arrive.
It's a self-propelled cellar that hasn't turned on the hype, and it's the disruption to Silicon Valley: Tesla. Less than two months ago, the company began selling its "full self-service", a $ 5,000 addition it had removed from the site in October. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said the feature would be "complete" by the end of the year, and fully available to customers by the end of 2020, theoretically allowing Tesla owners to turn on Autopilot and watch the vehicle drive through complex urban environments – or, depending on of their fancy, to fall asleep in the wheel. The CEO has an overview of his own deadlines, but Tesla usually also moves towards the flock.