Little by little we see how Waymo advances in his mission to give an autonomous car. This subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's parent company, is perhaps the one that has the most progress with respect to a car that can fend for itself in the city without a driver. Even almost all legislation expressly asks for a human being to be at the wheel of the car and to intervene. However, this project aimed to launch cars without a steering wheel, although for now they are betting on a system that makes any car autonomous.
The Waymo system is advanced enough that a number of journalists have been able to test it first hand. This would be the first major public exhibition, if we consider having many contacts with every technology company as something public. Even so, we have hardly seen videos of Waymo autonomous cars and this time it is a test in a real city environment.
Positive city tests
The latter is very important, as it offers us a vision of how it would behave in the most hostile and unpredictable environment. Until now, it has been seen almost full autopilot on the highway as it is an environment that does not involve complications for Waymo cars. It is an easy path to predict with other cars that follow it, there are no intersections or obstacles, and there are no people crossing the road. In the city it is not like that, with roads that are complicated to calculate and there are always some surprises that compromise safety.
The experience given to journalists by Waymo has given them the opportunity to make trips to the sites they want within the area allowed by the legislation of about 130 square kilometers. In some cases, it was said that a route had to be corrected, moving to a residential area for a few minutes, or braking so as not to run over some pigeons. It also has the assistance of people for complicated situations, such as if there is a motorhome that can be around for a long time. They don't always control the car, only in difficult situations.
A little bit left for Waymo's autonomous car
Each Waymo test car costs almost half a million dollars, a price that should come down with the economy of scale by partnering with some car manufacturer to introduce the cameras and sensors into a factory. It is a notable price increase, but it is speculated that it can eliminate up to 90% of traffic accidents, which are caused by human beings. This can save health and car insurance costs in the long run, which will be keen to cover anyone who knows that it causes fewer accidents than humans.
Many problems remain, the most important being not having doubts in complicated situations, what to do if it is impossible not to cause an accident and to overcome very complex legislation. As a personal bet, I would not bet an autonomous car to the public until at least five years in some state of the United States and in Europe they will wait a couple of years from then to approve it. Waymo and other companies are going to bet seriously on this, they have already been invested for a decade. Toyota has planned its autonomous car program for 2020 at the Olympics.
Source The Verge
