'Peak Hype': Why the Driverless Car Revolution Has Stalled
An Anonymous Coward writes:
'Peak hype': why the driverless car revolution has stalled:
By 2021, according to various Silicon Valley luminaries, bandwagoning politicians and leading cab firms in recent years, self-driving cars would have long been crossing the US, started filing along Britain's motorways and be all set to provide robotaxis in London.
1 January has not, however, brought a driverless revolution. Indeed in the last weeks of 2020 Uber, one of the biggest players and supposed beneficiaries, decided to park its plans for self-driving taxis, selling off its autonomous division to Aurora in a deal worth about $4bn (3bn) - roughly half what it was valued at in 2019.
The decision did not, Uber's chief executive protested, mean the company no longer believed in self-driving vehicles. "Few technologies hold as much promise to improve people's lives with safe, accessible, and environmentally friendly transportation," Dara Khosrowshahi said. But more people might now take that promise with a pinch of salt.
Prof Nick Reed, a transport consultant who ran UK self-driving trials, says: "The perspectives have changed since 2015, when it was probably peak hype. Reality is setting in about the challenges and complexity."
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