I'd be interested to see how Google sees this.
Paving the way for autonomous driving by making crashes something that people expect sometimes?
Or putting people off autonomous driving by making people think crashes are not acceptable at all, ever?
Paving the way for autonomous driving by making crashes something that people expect sometimes?
Or putting people off autonomous driving by making people think crashes are not acceptable at all, ever?
I believe their thought is that the closer we get to complete automation, the less likely a driver is to remain aware. We're only at roughly 10% automation right now and drivers are already taking their eyes off the road. When we get to 90%, humans will have an even tougher time retaining attentiveness. Watch their talks to be sure.
Google's self driving car group gives some awesome transparency reports every month, including details about every accident [1]. It's like they're ready to become their own company.
Fortune had a good article critiquing Tesla's strategy vs. Google's and other car companies' [2]. The author says Tesla is being defensive and resistant to public critique. Other companies expect pushback from the public and incorporate that into their product offerings.
[1] https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/
[2] http://fortune.com/2016/07/11/elon-musk-tesla-self-driving-c...
Google isn't doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They have always been required by law to send autonomous vehicle accident reports to the DMV, which are made available to the public on the DMV's website.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testi...
So the transparency itself is mandatory. Google merely chose to control the message and get free PR by publishing an abbreviated summary on their website too. Judging by this comment, it's working!
For example, here's the full report on Google's accident in February, the first one where the autonomous car was the vehicle at fault: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/3946fbb8-e04e-4d52...
Hahaha I guess so! :-D
There should be a similar requirement for transparency of driver-assist vehicles. Clearly, the companies are not giving this up themselves until they're all forced to do it at once.
>The crashes are calling the safety of such automatic driving features into question, just as they're being incorporated into more and more cars on the road.
Tesla's failure in this court harms the entire concept, not just their own brand. The average person isn't going to distinguish between Tesla's inappropriately named 'autopilot', which is not 100% automatic, and Google's, which is.
There is plenty of time for Tesla to reconsider its strategy and for Google to continue building on its good reputation.