Self-driving vehicle companies from Tesla Inc. to General Motors Co.’s Cruise are racing to make money with their technology, beating efforts by regulators and Congress to write rules of the road for robot-powered vehicles. Have given. On Tuesday, Cruise said SoftBank Group Corp. would invest another $1.35 billion in anticipation of Cruise starting commercial robo-taxi operations. To begin charging for rides around San Francisco in vehicles with no human driver, Cruise needs a permit from the Public Utilities Commission of California.
Cruz, Tesla, Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and Aurora Innovation Inc. are among several companies aiming to deploy fully autonomous vehicle technology in the United States within the next two to three years, regardless of whether federal regulators allow them to do so. give a clear legal framework for it or not. Autonomous vehicle (AV) startups and automakers are under pressure to start generating revenue from the billions of dollars in engineering investments over the past decade.
A proposed legislation to create a national framework of rules to govern autonomous vehicles has stalled in Congress, despite industry lobbying. This has left autonomous vehicle companies free to deploy robo-taxi or self-driving trucks in some states, such as Arizona and Texas, but not in others. Waymo offers thousands of rides in driverless robo-taxi in Phoenix, though service is limited.
Cruise said SoftBank Group Corp. will invest another $1.35 billion in anticipation of Cruise starting commercial robo-taxi operations
“Providing guard rails at the federal level is helpful,” said Chris Urmson, chief executive of Aurora Innovation, an automated vehicle technology company. “Today we have different rules in 50 states.”
Aurora is testing its Aurora driver in Class 8 trucks, but so far in California those trucks cannot be operated without human drivers. This cuts out a potentially thriving market for autonomous truck companies that move loads from Southern California east to distribution centers.
“We see the Port of Los Angeles … and the supply-chain challenges we see. There’s a real urgency to this technology,” Urmson told the audience at the Washington Auto Show last month to address the shortage of truck drivers. Said to.
AV industry lobbyist Ariel Wolf told a US House of Representatives panel on Tuesday that autonomous trucks “will not lead to mass layoffs.” Instead, he said, autonomous trucks plying long-distance routes would allow human drivers to “spend more nights in their own beds rather than in the truck’s sleeper berths.”
protect jobs
The unions, however, urged the Congress to be skeptical.
“If Congress fails to take decisive action and the AV industry is left completely unchecked, we could end up losing hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and frontline transportation jobs,” John Samuelson, president of the Transportation Workers Union, told the House panel on Tuesday. are at risk.”
Unions and trial lawyers also want autonomous vehicle companies to disclose more data about accidents and other aspects of their systems.
“All workers deserve to know that an autonomous vehicle or bot traveling next to them is safe enough to share the same road or workplace,” said Teamsters official Doug Bloch.
Waymo offers thousands of rides in driverless robo-taxi in Phoenix, though service is limited.
In the absence of new laws tailored to automated vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which oversees vehicle safety in the United States, has put forward voluntary guidelines and last year required companies to report accidents involving automated driving systems. .
But the agency has not issued comprehensive standards for robot-powered cars or trucks. The US Federal Aviation Administration has the power to review new technology before it is used in aircraft. But automotive manufacturers are free to certify for themselves that a facility is safe. NHTSA takes action if new features pose a security risk.
NHTSA officials have intensified an investigation into Tesla’s automated driving system over the past year. The agency said Tuesday that it had pressured Tesla to replace a feature of its Full Self Driving, or FSD, automatic driving system that allowed vehicles to proceed through stop signs instead of at full stops. So-called rolling stops are illegal.
In December, NHTSA began reviewing a feature that allowed Tesla models to play video on the dashboard screen, and last August opened a formal investigation into Autopilot driver assistance systems in 765,000 US vehicles, following several incidents in the Tesla emergency. collided with vehicles. ,
Still, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk made no mention of regulatory concerns during an investor call on January 26, when he said the company may soon use an over-the-air software download to help its vehicles self-driving. be able to drive and be used to provide autonomy. Ride Services.
“If we don’t achieve full self-driving safer than a human this year, I will be shocked,” Musk said. When Tesla enables its vehicles to drive autonomously via an over-the-air software download, Musk said, vehicle owners can offer rides that “will cost less than the subsidized price of a bus ticket.” “
One possible route for industry and safety advocates includes voluntary agreements on standards, said David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a vehicle safety research organization backed by the insurance industry. Harke said the IIHS could be part of such an effort.
“We have to get to the point where it’s not the Wild West,” he said.
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