Transportation

The 4 Reasons Autonomous Vehicles Seem Stalled In The U.S.


As the technology dawned, the predictions were stunning: one 2015 prediction forecast that autonomous vehicles would be piloting humans around U.S. cities in significant numbers as soon as 2018.

But here we are in 2020 and AVs have barely shown themselves in the United States, while other countries—notably China—are threatening to take the lead.

“Even the manufacturers have taken a much more careful view of it, a much more calculated view in the United States,” said Jerry Quandt, executive director of the Illinois Autonomous Vehicle Association, “but we are seeing it happening in China, and there are cities where 20 percent of the vehicles they have on the road are autonomous.”

It’s not entirely clear where the two countries stand in relation to technology development. A recent assessment by the South China Morning Post found that U.S. firms have a significant lead in the average number of miles traveled without human intervention: 11,000 miles for the U.S. firm Waymo, compared to 1,022 for China’s Pony.ai.

But China appears poised to dominate the industry because of strong central-government support.

“China’s goal is to become the world leader in AI and AVs as part of its Made in China 2025 plan,” according to the analysts at Qvartz. “To achieve this goal, the Chinese government has set a target that 10% of all cars sold in China should be fully autonomous by 2030, equal to around 3-4 million cars. This has helped jumpstart the AV industry in China, from almost nothing 2-3 years ago to an exponential growth of companies developing AVs today.”

Growth has been slower in the United States for a number of reasons, according to experts who gathered last week at the Smart Cities International Symposium in Chicago. I also queried Lauren Isaac, who made that 2018 prediction back in 2015 when she worked for the engineering and planning firm Parsons Brinkerhoff. First, Isaac:

1 Road Hazards Ahead

“Most of the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and technology companies are focused on deploying robo-taxis, and many of them promised that Level 5 driverless technology would be available by now,” said Isaac, who now works for EasyMile, an AV-technology firm based in Denver.

“While Level 5 technology requires the ability to be fully driverless everywhere, Level 4 technology requires fully driverless operation, but in limited ‘operational design domains.’ In the past few years, I think most of them realized that it was a greater challenge to develop the technology to that level than they realized and have since changed their commitments to being Level 4.”

Why did Level 5 prove so challenging?

“I think the #1 reason is the state of technology development needed to address the countless use cases that a Level 5 driverless vehicle would encounter—especially at higher speeds. While the technology may be able to handle (hypothetically) 90% of all use cases (examples being kids running after balls in the street, hail storms, and construction zones), there are always that many more exceptions. Level 5 is the driverless technology panacea, but Level 4 is the more attainable option today and in the near future.”

2 Media Coverage

When those unpredictable use cases result in the death of a single individual in an autonomous vehicle, the western press—with news values that emphasize the newness of the technology—responds with more dramatic coverage than the more than 36,000 deaths that occur in human-piloted automobiles annually.

“I definitely think the world of public opinion right now, which is driven by media sensationalism, is absolutely another slowdown contributor,” said Quandt. “And that’s not going to end anytime soon.”

3 Investment In The Status Quo

Autonomous vehicles are expected to eliminate nearly all traffic accidents and fatalities, but a number of U.S. industries—including law firms, insurance firms, repair firms—depend on traffic accidents and fatalities for revenue, Quandt said.

“We’ve built a massive business around 5 million accidents,” he said. “So you have all these businesses who—how many of them have figured out their new business model in this new world that we’ve got?

“So that could be another contributing factor. And let’s be honest, in state legislatures, that’s where policy is being slowed down because those groups have their hooks into tons of lawmakers and can thwart anything if they need to.”

4 Government Organization

AV makers would benefit from the guidance of a single policy, like the kind China’s central government can impose, but in the U.S. motor-vehicle policy is developed by 50 different states.

“State law is one” obstacle,” said Quandt, “because you can’t create a singular solution, because every state would have to ratify that policy.”

There’s also less centralized control of technology development in the U.S., a fact that Quandt believes will prove an advantage in the long term.

“We don’t have a government driving solutions, we have a whole ecosystem of universities emerging technologies, we have companies emerging technologies of their own, we have governments—the public sector—who are also emerging with solutions, and the compatibility of those is just going to be a little bit slower because there’s nobody dictating from the top down,” he said.

“I actually think that’s better because I’m a firm believer that the more minds you put to a problem the better end-solution it is. Not the fastest, but the better end-solution it is.”

At the Smart Cities International Symposium in Chicago, George Crabtree—who heads Argonne National Laboratory’s effort to develop the next generation battery—asked the panelists for a new prediction:

Crabtree: “We’ve been hearing about autonomous vehicles for a long time. They cut down on traffic deaths, accidents, and reduce traffic time. It’s not exactly here yet. So what’s your prediction for when it’s going to kind of become mainstream?”

Quandt: “What does it mean to be mainstream? Is it a certain percentage of vehicles are out on the road are autonomous?”

Crabtree: “Let’s just say 20 percent to pick a number.”

Quandt: “Twenty percent I’d say 2030, 2035 in major metropolitan areas. But again, if you take just the shipping and trucking business, I can see it being higher than that by 2030.”

And that prediction has remained consistent. In the United States, shipping and other fleets are expected to lead the transition, in part because they have better information than most individual motorists, said Matt Stephens-Rich, program manager of the Electrification Coalition.

“Who here knows down to the dollar and to the penny how much they spent last week on fuel for their car?” Stephens-Rich asked. “That’s an easy question that can be answered by a fleet manager vs. a private consumer, so that’s part of the reason.”



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