Love them or hate them , but robotaxis have certainly been make headlines in 2024 . And beyond the glamorous , sci - fi - inspire marketing around Tesla’srecently unveiledCybercab robotaxi , safety has remained , in one elbow room or another , a recurring musical theme .
Earlier this year , asurveyrevealed a bulk of the U.S. public , or 68 % , brought up safety concerns when asked what they recollect about having self - driving vehicle ( SDVs ) on public route . Yet within that legal age , more than half either believe that SDV guard issues can be deal or that SDVs will in reality be safer than humans .
It ’s no admiration then that Alphabet - have Waymo , which provides the only functioning robotaxi servicing in the U.S. , devotesa mountain of energyto addressing these concerns .
In a just - releasedresearch studywith insurance company Swiss Re , Waymo now read its Waymo Driver service demonstrates better rubber performance metrics than human drivers .
The work compare insurance policy liability claims against Waymo to those brought against human drivers , based on Swiss Re ’s data from over 500,000 claim and over 200 billion miles of exposure . compare to mankind , data for the Waymo Driver show an 88 % diminution in property damage claim and a 92 % reduction in bodily injury claims .
In real numbers , across 25.3 million mile already driven by the Waymo Driver , the service of process was involve in just nine holding damage claims and two corporeal trauma call . For the same distance , human drivers would be expected to have 78 property harm and 26 bodily injury title , Swiss Re say .
“ This analytic thinking complement oursafety impactdata , which designate that over 25 million fully autonomous miles , the Waymo Driver had fewer serious collision than human driver , self-governing of who was at fault , ” Waymo say on its blog .
So far , Alphabet - have Waymo has been the only robotaxi service operator able-bodied to convert U.S. regulators about the safety of its engineering .
On the other helping hand , General Motors - backed Cruise had to stop testing operations last year after one of its vehicle fatally come to a walker . GM alsorecently announcedit would stop fund Cruise on the whole .
As for Tesla , regulators have opened an probe into 2.4 million Tesla vehicle equipped with its full self - driving software system come after three reported collisions and a fateful crash . Tesla still hopes to launch its Cybercab robotaxi as a service in 2025 .
Of naturally , Tesla CEO Elon Musk appears to have a different approach than Waymo to harness concerns about safety gadget : Now that Musk has been saucily anoint to lead a newly - produce governmental government agency , he seems to have convinced the incoming Trump administrationto relax regulationsaround self - drive fomite , include thereporting of clangor .
