Level 5 Autonomy for all cars isn’t just the most convenient option, it’s also the safest, Waymo believes. And the tech company has a story that will probably convince you of the same, too.
At this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show, Waymo CEO John Krafcik recalled the early days of Waymo, when it wasn’t called that and was just a small tech department within Google, tasked with developing a driverless car. That was back in 2013 and the results to a little experiment were so shocking that the entire project was shut down after just a few weeks.
Internally, they would call the technology developed “AutoPilot.” It comprised of a system of cameras, radars and LiDAR, and a “massive” on board computer, and initial results were very promising. So they asked their own staff to test it out on the road, with some conditions, Krafcik said, as also highlighted in this Medium blog post.
These conditions were that drivers could take their hands off the wheel only if they remained alert and attentive to the road. They would monitored via in-car cameras and, in case they did other activities to distract them from the road, the car would be taken from them.
The threat of around-the-clock supervision did nothing in terms of curbing the drivers’ tendency to do everything but drive, as the video available at the bottom of the page shows. They texted, they used a laptop, they applied makeup and, yes, one of them also slept soundly as the car zoomed down the highway at 55 mph.
The video below was the reason why they shut down the project, Krafcik says.
“What we saw was that our testers put too much trust in that technology. They were doing things like texting, applying makeup, and even falling asleep that made it clear they would not be ready to take over driving if the vehicle asked them to. This is why we believe that nothing short of full autonomy will do,” he explains.
“The only way to solve the problem of roadway safety, and the only way to deliver the opportunity of mobility for all, was to take the human completely out of the loop. We committed then to full autonomy, no driver monitoring, nor driver’s license, required,” Krafcik adds.
Today’s AutoPilot is a middle stage towards full autonomy and, if it’s not done right, it can do more harm than good. That’s why progress is necessary, to move away from it, to Level 5 Autonomy and the true driverless car.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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