• Britain says makers, not car owners liable for self-driving crashes (Reuters, November 7, 2023)

  On Tuesday, King Charles announced that the British government would be moving forward with an Automated Vehicles Bill in which carmakers will be legally responsible for any autonomous vehicle crashes while the vehicle and technology is in testing and development. This move is welcomed by insurers as it provides clarity in liability for claims involving self-driving vehicles. The British government has stated, “While the vehicle is driving itself, a company rather than an individual will be responsible for the way it drives.”

  The bill will establish an investigative process, improve the safety framework, and will also define the classifications for self-driving vehicles. Founder of Oxford-based AV software firm Oxa, Paul Newman, has said that the proposed framework would likely avoid a repeat of “Cruise’s situation” (see below) in California last month “because it clearly delineates responsibilities.”

• GM’s latest problem may spell doom for major automotive trend (The Street, November 6, 2023)

  As widely reported, the California Department of Motor Vehicles recently revoked Cruise’s license to operate robotaxis on California roadways due to ongoing safety concerns. Shortly thereafter, Cruise unilaterally halted all of its driverless operations nationwide.   

  In the aftermath of the shutdown, a New York Times report highlighted the impact of Cruise’s decision to halt operations on its surprisingly large staff, which is comprised of  approximately 1.5 workers for every robotaxi in its fleet. According to sources familiar with the matter, these human operators actually intervene remotely to assist driverless operations once every 2.5 to five miles. 

  Professor Gary Marcus, an artificial intelligence expert, noted that the revelation of these numbers cast serious doubt on the viability of truly autonomous technology on roadways anytime in the near future. “If Cruise’s vehicles really need an intervention every few miles, and 1.5 external operators for every vehicle, they don’t seem to even be remotely close to what they have been alleging to the public,” Marcus wrote. “The whole self-driving cars industry is likely to be viewed in a few years as an epic fail, crushed by outliers and AI that could not reason adequately,” Marcus added. 

  In response to these critical allegations, Cruise’s CEO Kyle Vogt countered that its robotaxis are actually only remotely assisted 2% to 4% of the time, in “complex urban environments.” He added that many of these sessions are simply “quick confirmation requests that are resolved in seconds.” 

• Autonomous Vehicle Funding Stuck In Neutral (Crunchbase News, November 3, 2023)

  Funding of autonomous vehicles has hit its lowest point since 2017, with autonomous driving startups having raised less than $4.5 billion so far in 2023. The last 12 months have been hard for autonomous vehicle development, with the startup Argo AI closing its doors last year, VW announcing its plans to cut 2,000 jobs from its Cariad automotive software development unit,  and most recently with the announcements that both GM and Ford are suspending autonomous vehicle development.

  The decline in funds raised stems from a sharp decline in the number of deals completed in the sector, seeing its lowest number since 2017. Funding reached its highest peak in 2021, with the industry receiving over $12 billion with 264 deals, led by Cruise alone raising $2.75 billion.

  However, despite investors overall pulling back on funding and development of autonomous vehicles, Pittsburgh-based commercial trucking startup Stack AV has hired over 150 people and has reportedly raised over $1 billion in September.

  After the closing of Argo AI last year, it seems that most big automakers are trying to develop its autonomous vehicle technology in-house, rather than investing in startups.

• Tesla ordered to cough up data for Autopilot probe or face heavy fines (The Register, July 6, 2023)

  In the latest skirmish between NHTSA and Tesla regarding the regulator’s ongoing investigation into the safety of Autopilot, NHTSA issued a letter to Tesla last week requesting more details about Autopilot’s effectiveness and its ability to engage drivers appropriately, which has been the subject of a probe by the agency since 2021.

  “Failure to respond promptly and fully” could lead to civil penalties of up to $26,315 per violation per day for a maximum of $131.6 million, said the letter from Tanya Topka, acting director of the Office of Defects Investigation, which set July 19 as the response deadline.

  Among the voluminous data requested by NHTSA are details regarding “all modifications or changes” to Autopilot for vehicles produced between 2014 and 2023; including the date of the modification, the reason for the change, whether the vehicles have a cabin camera installed, when the vehicle was admitted into Tesla’s full-self-driving beta, and the software, firmware and hardware versions of each and every Tesla that falls into its investigative purview.

  Given that this data requests encompasses an estimated 830,000 vehicles, it will be interesting to see how or when Tesla responds. 

• Volkswagen will start testing self-driving cars in Austin as it moves on from Argo AI (CNBC, July 6, 2023)

  In the wake of its decision to move on from Argo AI, Volkswagen announced last week that it will start deploying its ID.Buzz electric vans in Austin, Texas later this month. The vans will be equipped with autonomous-driving systems developed with Mobileye. For now, these vehicles will have human safety drivers on board during testing and will be “geofenced” in areas that have been carefully pre-mapped for autonomous operation.

  “We selected Austin as the first U.S. hub, as the city has a track record for embracing innovation and offers a conducive climate for the testing of autonomous vehicles,” said Katrin Lohmann, the executive leading Volkswagen’s self-driving efforts in the U.S.

  Volkswagen hopes to expand this testing operation to at least four more U.S. cities over the next three years as it continues to focus on developing fleet management technology it can offer to other ride-sharing or delivery businesses.

• The real reason Tesla is letting rival car companies use its EV charging stations (Business Insider, July 1, 2023)

  One reason Tesla may be opening the gates to its previously cordoned-off Supercharger network may be as simple as what is quickly becoming as valuable as gold in the connected car market: data, and lots of it. Tesla reportedly uses cellular and WiFi data ports to collect what one investigation called a “hoard” of data about any car that plugs into its Supercharger network, tracking a plethora of data points from vehicle performance to driver preferences. By letting competitors freely access its chargers, Tesla appears poised and capable of siphoning off this critical and highly valuable data under the guise of charging collaborations.

  In addition to affording Tesla with invaluable insight into its competitors’ EV specifications and performance, this brilliant move may also provide Tesla with yet another lucrative revenue stream in the form of vehicle data sales, which some predict could be worth more than $800 billion by the end of the decade.

  “I suspect that both Ford and GM have set up ways to prevent Tesla from directly harvesting ownership information,” says Mike Ramsey, an automotive analyst with Gartner. “But Tesla could probably figure it out using other means. The data value is mostly internal to Tesla in terms of competitive intelligence.”

While we are excited for all the promise a new year brings—including in the rapidly evolving automotive technology space—we didn’t want to get too far down the road without pausing to reflect on the major developments that came and went with 2022.  We also love a good year end list.  Check out our list below, and let us know what made your “best of” list!

• Tesla raised the price of its “Full Self Driving” feature, then gave access to anyone who purchased the package regardless of safety score, all while facing litigation, legislative action, and regulatory and public scrutiny over the safety and actual functionality of its ADAS technology relative to its public marketing.

• EV manufacturers struggled to meet skyrocketing demand as supply chain and sourcing issues persisted.

• Federal and State lawmakers announced major incentives and lofty targets for EV adoption and committed to greater AV oversight and regulation.

• Traditional legal constructs were tested as felony charges were filed against the driver of an AV for the first time, and Tesla largely prevailed in its first jury trial involving a vehicle fatality.

• Traditional OEMs like Ford and VW pulled back from fully autonomous development plans, focusing instead on Level 2+ designs, just as robotaxi companies like Waymo and Cruise expanded (although not without incident).

• NHTSA began to release data from crashes involving advanced driving technologies, gathered in response to its 2021 Standing Order requiring reporting of such data by OEMs and operators, with mixed reception and uncertain utility.

• Mercedes set its sights on becoming the first OEM to receive Level 3 approval in the United States, and it was broadly reported to have committed to take legal responsibility for the vehicle whenever its Level 3 system, DrivePilot, was properly engaged.

• Connected vehicles and the data they produce were central to industry discussions about privacy, access, recall responses, cybersecurity, and revenue potential.

In the wake of surprising news that Argo AI is shutting down, we are expanding our headline coverage this week and dedicating the post to various viewpoints on the future of autonomy.

• Ford, VW-backed Argo AI is shutting down (TechCrunch, October 26, 2022)

  Argo AI unexpectedly announced last week that it will wind down its operations, which began in earnest in 2017 following major investments from Ford and VW. Since that time, Ford and VW together have contributed significantly to the billions of dollars Argo AI has raised. The two OEMs reportedly will absorb some of Argo AI’s employees and technology, although the distribution remains unclear.

  Argo AI explained the decision to shut down in a public statement, saying : “In coordination with our shareholders, the decision has been made that Argo AI will not continue on its mission as a company. Many of the employees will receive an opportunity to continue work on automated driving technology with either Ford or Volkswagen, while employment for others will unfortunately come to an end.” Industry insiders believe the decision was “fueled by Argo’s inability to attract new investors,” and failure to deliver on promises to bring AV technology to the market by 2021.

  For its part, Ford has committed to refocusing efforts on safer L2+ and L3 ADAS technologies, which its CEO, Jim Farley, characterized as “mission critical.” While Farley did not entirely dismiss the possibility of fully autonomous vehicles in Ford’s future, he added that such technology “at scale [is] a long way off and we won’t necessarily have to create that technology ourselves.”

  VW plans to shift focus as well, using “its software unit Cariad to drive forward development of highly automated and autonomous driving together with Bosch and, in the future, in China with Horizon Robotics.”

• Ford Abandons the Self-Driving Road to Nowhere (Wired, October 28, 2022)

  Some view the shuttering of Argo AI as “the latest sign that the global effort to get cars to drive themselves is in trouble—or at least more complex than once thought.” Ford’s stated reasons for withdrawing from the venture support this view. Ford’s CFO added to CEO Farley’s comments, saying “the math of Argo, which took in more than $3 billion during its brief life, just didn’t add up. [Ford] calculated it would be five years or more ‘before you could actually get something that started to generate a meaningful business.’”

  The industry shift away from autonomous and toward better driver-assist features is evident not just in Ford and VW’s pivot, but also arguably in the recent IPO of Mobileye, a manufacturer of cameras, chips, and software that are largely used for driver assistance.

  But not all industry participants are sounding the death knell for autonomy. The CEO of GM, for example, remarked on an investor call that “[w]e’re seeing increased separation between the companies operating commercial driverless services and those that are still stuck in the ‘trough of disillusionment.’” Waymo, too, still plans to begin testing its robotaxis in LA.

• The automaker path to autonomous cars has changed (Axios, October 28, 2022)

  Offering somewhat of a counter-point opinion, this author rejects the idea that “self-driving cars will never materialize,” predicting that they will be “widely available” in her lifetime.

  She notes that the technology still matters, in that it has tremendous safety and accessibility benefits. While she acknowledges that investments will likely slow and many OEMs are pivoting to an “interim strategy of equipping cars with partial automation to handle the wort aspects of driving” (which is also cheaper), she points to several automakers including Ford and Tesla that already offer “hands free” technology in limited circumstances, and the many companies who are still pursuing self-driving technology unflinchingly.

  As Aurora’s CEO, Chris Urmson, commented, “[w]hat we’re seeing now is much like what happened to the automobile industry. …  At the beginning of the 20th century, there were over 250 manufacturers. By the 1930s, there were only three. This doesn’t mean the industry was a failure—it means it was an incredibly lucrative opportunity that attracted a lot of competition but was also extremely challenging.”

• Robotaxis Are More Than a Decade Away, Says Luminar’s CEO Austin Russell (TIME, October 30, 2022)

  Austin Russell, who became the youngest self-made billionaire in 2020, founded his LiDAR company Luminar on the gamble that “getting rid of drivers would be harder than people realized,” despite all of the hype around autonomous driving. Based on the headlines splashed across media channels for the last week, including those captured here, it appears that Russell bet wisely.

  In this interview with TIME, Russell explains why he’s an “autonomous vehicle skeptic,” and responds to Elon Musk’s “contrarian” view that LiDAR is unnecessary to achieve full self-driving. And if you’re betting with Russell, he predicts self-driving robotaxis will not be available “at any appreciable scale” until “well into the 2030s.”