According to predictions made nearly a decade ago, we should be riding around in self-driving vehicles today. It’s now clear the autonomous vehicle revolution was overhyped.

Proponents woefully underestimated the technological challenges. It turns out developing a truly driverless vehicle is hard.

The other factor driving the hype was the amount of money being invested in autonomous vehicle startups. By 2021, it was estimated more than US$100 billion in venture capital had gone into developing the technology.

While advances are being made, it is important to understand there are multiple levels of autonomy. Only one is truly driverless. As established by SAE International, the levels are:

level 0 — the driver has to undertake all driving tasks
level 1, hands on/shared control — vehicle has basic driver-assist features such as cruise control and lane-keeping
level 2, hands off – vehicle has advanced driver-assist features such as emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, auto park assist and traffic-jam assist
level 3, eyes off — vehicle drives itself some of the time
level 4, mind off — vehicle drives itself most of the time
level 5, steering wheel option — vehicle drives itself all the time.

Why the slow progress?

It’s estimated the technology to deliver safe autonomous vehicles is about 80% developed. The last 20% is increasingly difficult. It will take a lot more time to perfect.

Challenges yet to be resolved involve unusual and rare events that can happen along any street or highway. They include weather, wildlife crossing the road, and highway construction.

Another set of problems has emerged since Cruise and Waymo launched their autonomous ride-hailing services in San Francisco. The US National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration opened an investigation in December 2022, only six months after the services were approved. It cited incidents where these vehicles “may have engaged in inappropriately hard braking or became immobilized”.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority stated:

[I]n the months since the initial approval of autonomous taxi services in June 2022, Cruise AVs have made unplanned and unexpected stops in travel lanes, where they obstruct traffic and transit service and intrude into active emergency response scenes, including fire suppression scenes, creating additional hazardous conditions.

In several cases, Cruise technicians had to be called to move the vehicles.

What’s happening now?

Active autonomous vehicle initiatives can be grouped into two categories: ride-hailing services (Cruise, Waymo and Uber) and sales to the public (Tesla).

Cruise is a subsidiary of General Motors founded in 2013. As of September 2022, it operated 100 robotaxis in San Francisco and had plans to increase its fleet to 5,000. Critics said this would increase city traffic.

Cruise, the self-driving unit of General Motors that operates a robotaxi service in San Francisco, has applied for permission to test its autonomous vehicles across all of California.https://t.co/KbsLjk7JvC

— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) March 21, 2023

Cruise also began to offer services in Chandler (a Phoenix suburb), Arizona, and Austin, Texas, in December 2022.

Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project, was founded in January 2009. The company lost US$4.8 billion in 2020 and US$5.2 billion in 2021.

Waymo One provides autonomous ride-hailing services in Phoenix as well as San Francisco. It plans to expand into Los Angeles this year.

So, what can we expect next?

Autonomous vehicle development will continue, but with less hype. It’s being recognised as more an evolutionary process than a revolutionary one. The increasing cost of capital will also make it harder for autonomous vehicle startups to get development funds.

The areas that appear to be making the best progress are autonomous ride-hailing and heavy vehicles. Self-driving car sales to the public are further down the track.