Current Events #12 (MP3 #3)

     Cars have always been evolving since their popularization in the early 1900s. We've gone through many eras of car designs. From the very compact and simple design of the 20s to the boxy look of the 70s to today's aerodynamic and fuel efficient designs one thing has always remained the same, a human driver behind the wheel. In recent times, however, companies have been developing technology to eliminate that need. This is nothing new but to expect driverless technology to hit the markets very soon, as many car companies have been telling us, might now be questionable. Waymo, a company that has been working on driverless technology since 2009, recently rolled out its Waymo One, a self driving taxi. Many, including Waymo themselves, expected the Waymo One to be fully driverless and open to the public by this year but seems to have failed in that regard. Waymo's recent roll out involves the public very little. Not many people are using the new service; Waymo refuses to release data about how many are using Waymo One but it seems like only a good handful of people are actually using it. No where online are hoards of people posting about their experience using Waymo One so it seems the public roll out isn't very public.

The Waymo One

     In addition to this the Waymo One has many technical problems. The programming behind Waymo One seems to struggle with situations that are otherwise easily handled by a human driver. Turning left for Waymo One seems painfully slow to the passengers that actually rode it. When changing lanes Waymo One takes a long time to make the switch. While a human driver is able to read the positions of the other drivers and make a move according to prediction Waymo One won't switch until it sees an actual opening. When a car crash was ahead in the lane Waymo One would continue to go down the lane until it detected the cones, when it would the switch lanes. A human driver in the same scenario would see the crash ahead of time and switch lanes before even approaching the cones. In fact, the scenario with the car may have involved the human safety driver taking over in the last second when it seemed like the car would not switch lanes which leads us to the last problem with the roll out - it's not completly driverless. Waymo anticipated a fully driverless launch but it seems like this anticipation won't be true. The most advanced iterations of Waymo One need a human behind the wheel for safety purposes, in the case the programming encounter something it was not programmed to respond to. There have been very few instances of a fully driverless run and not many have seen Waymo One without a driver, so it seems like the driverless launch that was anticipated will not be reality.
     My reflections on this article is that technology is rapidly advancing but perhaps not at the speed of light. Waymo is facing setbacks with it's driverless technologies. It has been working since 2009 and yet it doesn't have a viable final product. Its launch really seems like an extension of the testing phase, so I believe driverless technology (in a viable state) is yet to hit the consumer market. This is especially considering other companies that are developing driverless tech started way later than Waymo. Maybe it will be in the mid to late 2020s that driverless reaches viability but with Waymo's recent setbacks it seems unlikely a driverless car will hit consumer markets from 2019 to early 2020s like many companies anticipate. These setbacks are nothing to be surprised to, however. Any new technology takes time and many iterations to work. Edison's light bulb needed to go through many failed tests before a proper filament was found for it to work. Driverless needs many iterations in programming to be viable, especially considering human safety. I won't be surprised if it even takes until 2030 for viable driverless cars to hit the market because these technologies take a lot of time to perfect considering what's at stake.

Works Cited:

Lee, Timothy "Even self-driving leader Waymo is struggling to reach full autonomy" 7 Dec 2018. Web 9 Dec 2018.

<https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/12/waymos-lame-public-driverless-launch-not-driverless-and-barely-public/>