The entire self-driving car industry pressed pause on Monday following news that an Uber self-driving car struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. The pedestrian was crossing outside of the crosswalk, and a human safety driver was behind the wheel when it happened.
The pedestrian’s death sent a shockwave through the industry, which has remained full-speed ahead for years now. According to U.S. News and World Report, some analysts are now rethinking General Motors’ self-driving-car timeline.
GM has aggressively stated it will roll out commercialized self-driving cars next year in major cities, but Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster said the timeline isn’t realistic.
“It is unlikely we see something like a fully operational autonomous fleet shuttling folks around in the next five years,” Munster said.
GM responded to the self-driving Uber incident by saying its timeline remains unchanged, but it covered itself should delays occur.
“Our plans to commercially launch in dense urban environments in 2019 remain unchanged but, as we’ve said from the start, we will not launch until we are satisfied that it is safe to do so,” a GM statement read from this week.
Despite analysts’ predictions, such as Munster, he and others still believe GM will reap the benefits of developing the technology now. Another analyst, David Whiston, said despite any delays, investors should begin to see results before 2023.
“GM is well-positioned to compete in these new spaces via its own autonomous vehicle work, its Maven subsidiary, which does car-sharing and could move into autonomous ride-hailing, OnStar, and its approximate 9 percent ownership of Lyft,” he said.
Comments
It’s sad that it finally took someone getting killed to put this all in perspective….. there is no way in hell that we were 1 year out from having these available to the public
I’ve been asking for a year but have gotten no answer, I live in toronto during our winters the slush and snow buildup on sensors is paralyzing. On my car when the fron bumper sensors get covered up with slush/snow they don’t stop beeping until I go out and wipe it off it’s so annoying and those are just parking sensors.
Also main roads and highways get cleared of snow within hours but side streets can go 12-36 hours before getting plowed how are these sensors going to pick up where the lanes are?
I might be way off but until you have to drive through a winter I can’t rely on sensors
“Also main roads and highways get cleared of snow within hours but side streets can go 12-36 hours before getting plowed how are these sensors going to pick up where the lanes are?”
Because at that point, the sensors aren’t looking for lane markers. Their looking for established landmarks and signposts as recorded during ideal conditions (summer with clear skies), and when used in conjunction with GPS locations, the predictive software can learn where the lane is in the summer months and remember where it is in the winter months without making visual confirmation…
…just like how humans do in the winter. You know there are lanes somewhere, but since they’re covered with snow, you and other drivers are simply trying to remember where the lanes where in the warmer weather.
If a human driver can remember where the lanes are when they are covered in snow, an autonomous car can too. The real challenge will be in how accurately the autonomous car can record the lanes’ location with GPS.
For the autonomous car, that data can be shared with other autonomous cars that have never driven down that snow-covered road before, and can also inform your autonomous car if you’ve never driven down a snow covered road before.
Jaywalking, black clothing at night, major multi-lane highway with plenty of signs saying pedestrians/bikes/horses keep off.
That bike-walker was asking for it. If I was driving with my hands on the wheel there is no way I would have avoided her myself.
This is NOT an autonomous-driving accident. It’s a dark-night jaywalking accident. If this is going to get found as the car’s accident, then NEVER EVER will autonomous cars be allowed in New York or Baltimore…
Try driving in Baltimore, just try. And I’m not being racist. The folks of all colors in that city just freakn walk right out in front of cars with a look of “I’m gonna kill you” pointed right at the drivers. In NY, it’s the courier cyclists. May be we should vote to have autonomous cars made compulsory immediately in those cities?
This lady got what she deserved! She walked out in front of on coming traffic, I have zero symphaty for her or her family. Her family should not get one dime from this, in fact her family should be given a bill for the damages on the car!
Do you have sympathy for someone who steps in front of a bus? No, so why should this be any different! Roads are supposed to be for cars not people or bicycles!
The negative reaction to these cars is a joke there’s nothing wrong with the cars just the people that operate around them!
Even if loss of life is sad, the so-called shocked reaction of the industry as a whole is just plain politically-correct marketing.
It would be sad to see the technological advance stopped just by one incident which would have overcome a human driver as well.
I’m not embracing self-driving cars, but if this is the unavoidable future, then I’d prefer to see GM succeed rather than some other brand.
Having lived in New York in Mid -town , I don’t see how these cars are going to operate safely with all of the pedestrian traffic there is . Traffic lights turn red and people think they still have time to cross that street , bike riders riding between the lanes of cars , not to mention the taxi drivers breaking just about every law there is .
Computers / sensors can only do so much and if you add inclement weather to the mix accidents are going to happen . The lady that was recently killed , in my opinion wasn;t the fault of the car , but was an unintended accident that would or could have happened in a normal car .
But with any new technology their are going to be bugs just like the laptop I am using , some days it works great , but there are other days it doesn’t . I don’t know how much time GM has invested in these cars but as of right now I don’t trust them .
In a Wall Street Journal article a few months back , the writer claimed that some Government officials are actually concerned that some of these vehicles may be used as a weapon . The public is going to have to be informed on just what these vehicles can and cannot do .
GM I believe is being more optomistic about their plans than what we are really going to see . Computers are only as smart as the person programming it .
How about a race to a 100 mpg gas powered car? Putting 100,000 hyrdrogen cars on the road? Halving vehicle emissions?
The smart move is to lose this race, avoid the negative PR. The public doesn’t need yet another reason to fear GM vehicles.
I am no fan of these systems since I love to drive.
But their time is coming. There is pleanty of things to still work out and we still need to address many legal aspects yet because there will aways still be accidents.
Much of the future will rely on many systems. Radar, sonar, thermal imaging, GPS etc.and computer sensors etc.
GM has invested much in many new and advanced technology.
I expect it to take some time but unfortunately it will still arrive.
At worst case politicians step in and force all be cars to carry the technology and they force out older cars over time. Kind of like digital tv.
If all models are forced to this it solves many issues.
I pray it fails.