With millions of testing miles under the hood, autonomous vehicles are expected to see much wider adoption within the next few years.
Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, recently introduced autonomous taxi service in Los Angeles. Amazon’s Zoox is set to launch its four-passenger driverless taxi service later this year in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Foster City, California. Other cities, including Miami, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas, are expected to roll out robotaxis in 2025 as well. Notice that these deployments are in warmer climates, as snow and ice present difficulties for autonomous navigation.
It’s not just robocars; driverless trucks are gaining traction as well. Consulting firm McKinsey predicts that autonomous trucks will “reach viability” sometime between 2028 and 2031. That’s just a few years away.
Autonomous trucking firms have been successfully testing driverless technologies for years. Aurora Innovation has logged 3 million miles with a safety driver present and another 1,200 miles of completely autonomous operation. It says it’s now successfully running its autonomous trucks on Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston for Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines. Aurora plans to expand operations to Phoenix and El Paso, Texas, by the end of the year.
So what’s driving these recent moves into autonomous operations? It mainly comes down to technological improvements and anticipated cost reductions as operations ramp up. Tens of millions of dollars have been invested in the LiDAR, camera, radar, and artificial intelligence systems that make autonomous driving possible. Investors are now eager to see returns.
On top of that, industry players now have many millions of miles of data to back up their claims about vehicle performance. Research from Waymo and independent firms shows that driverless vehicles can be as safe as—or safer than—those with humans behind the wheel. Once a dangerous situation is detected, it takes a human 0.3 seconds to react. Autonomous systems can react in just 0.001 seconds.
Further, in an analysis of over 50 million miles of driving data, Waymo found that compared with their human-operated counterparts, its vehicles had 83% fewer crashes with airbags deployed, 81% fewer crashes causing injuries, and 64% fewer crashes requiring a police response.
With continuing pressures on the trucking industry, including a long-standing driver shortage and a recent executive order requiring that truck drivers be proficient in English, it’s a good bet you’ll soon be seeing more autonomous vehicles operating in a lane near you.
