Uber’s self-driving car program is 400 times inferior to Waymo-Google on the distance until human intervention is needed. Waymo can drive a distance equal to driving from Los Angeles to New York and back again (5600 miles) while Uber had trouble reaching 13 miles without intervention.
As of March, 2018 Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona, according to 100 pages of company documents obtained by The New York Times and two people familiar with the company’s operations in the Phoenix area but not permitted to speak publicly about it. Yet Uber’s test drivers were being asked to do more — going on solo runs when they had worked in pairs.
In 2017, Waymo- Google reported 63 disengagements over 352,545 miles of testing, a rate of 1 every 5596 miles. This was 0.18 disengagements per 1000 miles. That shows continued improvement from the company’s 0.2 disengagements per every 1000 miles reported in last year’s disengagement reports and the 0.8 mark established in 2015.
In 2018, Uber was still not doing as well as Delphi.
In March, 2017, Uber’s performance reported that Uber self-driving cars were able to travel an average of 0.67 miles on Scottsdale Road without human intervention and an average of 2 miles without a ‘bad experience”’.
In 2016, the reported miles before intervention in California were:
Google: 5,127.9 miles (635,868 miles driven, 124 disengagements)
BMW: 638 miles (638 miles driven, 1 disengagements)
Nissan: 263.3 miles (6,056 miles driven, 23 disengagements)
Ford: 196.6 miles (590 miles driven, 3 disengagements)
General Motors: 54.7 miles (8,156 miles driven, 149 disengagements)
Delphi Automotive Systems: 14.9 miles (2,657.7 miles driven, 178 disengagements)
Tesla: 2.9 miles (550 miles, 185 disengagements)
Mercedes-Benz: 2 miles (673 miles, 336 disengagements)
Bosch: 0.68 miles (983 miles driven, 1,448 disengagements)
In the final three months of 2017, Cruise Automation (now owned by GM) logged 62,689 miles and reported 12 disengagements, one every 5224 miles.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.