Many independent researchers, startups and well-funded players like Uber Technologies Inc. and the Cruise unit of General Motors Co. are working to resolve these challenges. Streets around Silicon Valley, Pittsburgh and suburban Phoenix, among other places, have become test tracks for many of these efforts. They’re testing their vehicles both on obstacle-free closed courses without human drivers and on public roadways with human “safety operator” backups.
States and federal regulators are still trying to determine how to best oversee the technology to ensure safety while also encouraging its development. Arizona, once a state with few rules governing self-driving car testing, took Uber off the roads in March after a fatal collision between one of the company’s test vehicles and a pedestrian near Tempe.
But regulators are still signing off on autonomous vehicle projects. Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo subsidiary tests its fully driverless cars on public roads in Chandler, Ariz., and won permission from California in October to test its autonomous vehicles without human backups in a handful of areas near Google’s headquarters in Mountain View.
“Not every sensor is perfect by itself,” says Chuck Price, vice president of product at autonomous trucking company TuSimple. Until the technology becomes road-ready for the mass market, he says, companies developing autonomous vehicles will continue to employ and test multiple types of sensors. And however flawed humans may be, they’re still the best drivers on the road.