As of April 7, 2020, CA DMV has issued two Driverless Vehicle Testing Permits
dmv.ca.gov
dmv.ca.gov
The CA DMV's requirements for testing with a driver read a lot like those for a learner's permit - must have licensed driver in vehicle, no commercial use, no large vehicles. Testing without a driver has more requirements, although it's mostly self-certification. DMV doesn't require a road test.
Here's the form for applying for testing without a driver.[1] It's all pretty straightforward. If you actually have technology to do the job reliably, it's not going to be a problem. Uber used to complain that California was too restrictive for them to test here, until they ran down a pedestrian in Arizona. DMV seems to be doing a good job of sorting out the working technology from the fake-it-til-you-make-it crowd.
[1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/63d33316-895a-474c...
I swear there are more than 20 self-driving cars driving around the streets of Silicon Valley.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_...
you also need to own more than 25 registered motor vehicles and a five million dollar surety bond.
interesting bits...
> a manufacturer shall report within 10 days after the collision, any collision originating from the operation of the autonomous vehicle that resulted in property damage, bodily injury or death.
10 days? why not 10 hours? these manufacturers ideally know at all times where each vehicle is and what its doing, and a police report takes about 20 minutes.
This imposes the same rules on machines / manufacturers as humans. Seems right for this phase of development. If this whole driverless cars thing works out hopefully the machines can do better than humans. They can sit on hold for longer at least.
The OL 311 application form and 13 CCR § 227.04(c) say you have to provide one of insurance, self-insurance, or a surety bond. The requirement to have 25 vehicles applies only to self-insurance, as for any other self-insurer.
Waymo is owned by Google (well, Alphabet), and is looking to compete with Uber/Lyft.
Nuro is backed by Softbank, and is looking to start with food/grocery deliveries.
I've heard that Uber ATG is barely staying afloat and Lyft is just pumping money just as a desperate attempt (their platform is much more powerful, which is what they're betting on).
What they need is to figure out how to massively decrease operating margins, and for many years now the story has been how it'll be done - at least partly - with autonomous vehicles. I'm skeptical, but we'll see. It would make a lot more sense to me if the robotaxis were used only on certain roads outfitted with multiple types of redundant roadside sensors to assist the self-driving cars.
Unless you want to own a specific speciality car (Ferrari, Jeep, etc), Waymo eliminates the need for you to buy one. It's Uber but without the overhead of paying a person, which means price could normalize so close to the actual operating expenses of the vehicle that it just doesn't make financial sense to use anything else.
With regards to the "first robo taxi deployment"
[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1249210220200550405?s=21
I'm not convinced.
But they don't have autonomy. They have driver assist. And this bad marketing gets people killed.
It's not actually clear that Tesla lowers the fatality rate. Tesla's driver assist features only work on highways, and highway miles are some of the safest. But the data you get compares assisted teslas on highways to average drivers on all roads. And it's not clear that Tesla is categorically better than competitor's driver assist technology (https://qz.com/1414132/teslas-first-accident-report-claims-i...).
So nothing you've claimed is strongly supported by evidence, and given that these are safety claims that you're parroting from tesla, I'm going to reiterate: Tesla's claims of improved safety and marketing are dangerous since they aren't true.
> It's weird that I have to point out second time I _didn't say they have autonomy_.
Right, but Tesla does, they call their driver assist "Autopilot".
Or call it what it is, lying. He habitually lies about timelines.
> still have most advanced self driving capabilities that are actually mass selling now.
Easy to be the most advanced if you're the only one "selling".
My experience with forward looking statements has been that people interpret something with many caveats as promises with no caveats.
> Easy to be the most advanced if you're the only one "selling". I don't understand what you mean with quotes.
Telsa's FSD package is a scam that will never be delivered. It's not a sale because there's no service delivered, it's a lie meant to trick people and investors out of their money.
To me the issue is that Tesla seems to be shooting for the moon, trying to do it all in one shot, rather than its on rails method that we have seen from other manufacturers. By on rails I mean only on very accurately mapped routes with no deviation.
I would not trust my car with my eyes closed, I do however trust it with supervision which still is a major relief from the stress of driving.
One issue that seems being dodged is, my current software and hardware allows the cars too represent stop signs, traffic lights, cones, and oddly trashcans. Guess what is missing, speed limit signs. The suspicion is that MobileEye holds the patent and either Tesla won't pay for it or MobileEye won't license it. So how you can have a self driving car that cannot recognize speed limit signs is not evident to me; road data is not complete.