Monday, December 31, 2018

The Hype Around Driverless Cars Came Crashing Down In 2018

Personally I think the hype around driverless cars has been dead and stinking for a long time.

As 2018 dawned, expectations for self-driving vehicles were sky-high:

  • Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car company, was testing fully driverless cars and preparing for a commercial launch in the Phoenix area.
  • Uber was racking up millions of test miles for its own cars.
  • Tesla was selling a "full self-driving" upgrade for its vehicles—though the feature wasn't actually shipping yet. Several times in 2016, CEO Elon Musk predicted that the technology would be ready in about two years.

Self-driving technology seemed to be right around the corner. But then the industry was battered by bad news.