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Waymo and Cruise are busy testing their robotaxi software program in San Francisco. These two corporations are among the many leaders in autonomous car (AV) investments. My final column in contrast their efforts primarily based on the general public information out there from the California Division of Motor Automobiles (DMV). This column summarizes information from the California Public Utility Fee (PUC) and California DMV collision report.
The California DMV requires AV corporations to file stories when an AV is concerned in a collision, and this consists of every thing — even a slight bumper incident. The information is offered on the California DMV’s web site.
Every collision report is a downloadable three–web page PDF file. Every report consists of a variety of information corresponding to date, time, location, climate, lighting, and street situations. A bit on accidents/demise and property harm is included. Particulars on the collision embody motion earlier than the collision, kind of collision (head–on, sideswipe, and many others.), roadway traits, AV harm, and data on different events concerned within the collision.
A one or two paragraph description of the collision historical past and end result was essentially the most helpful a part of every collision report.
The subsequent desk is a abstract of the yearly collision information for 2015 via 2021 and a sum for the seven–12 months time interval. Complete collisions for all corporations are included within the desk together with Waymo’s and Cruise’s information. Waymo and Cruise’s share of complete collisions are listed. The yearly AV miles pushed provides views on the yearly collision traits.
Waymo’s collision traits present enhancements by 12 months. As Waymo started testing in San Francisco in 2021, the variety of collisions elevated together with a lot larger AV miles travelled. The Cruise collision development versus AV miles travelled additionally present enhancements beginning in 2018.
The variety of collisions per million miles will be calculated from this information, however since many of the collisions are brought on by different automobiles it will not be very helpful.
The stories don’t listing who prompted the collision, however there may be sufficient information to make an evaluation within the overwhelming majority of incidents. It takes a variety of effort to compile and analyze the info, nevertheless.
To acquire some perspective, I checked out Waymo and Cruise collision stories for 2019, 2020, and 2021. The California DMV web site has collision information for 2022 via early Could 2022, which was additionally included. The subsequent desk is a abstract primarily based on my evaluation of the collision faults from analyzing the collision stories — about 260 between Waymo and Cruise.
The desk exhibits that the overwhelming majority of the collisions are brought on by different automobiles and street customers. For Waymo, 79% of the AV collisions had been the fault of different street customers. It was even larger for Cruise with 87% of collisions brought on by different street customers.
Waymo had two collisions that appeared like they had been brought on by the AV system—each had been bumping into parked automobiles in a multi-point turnaround. Cruise had one collision that appeared prefer it was the AV’s fault.
The AV security drivers had been at fault in 27 collisions for Waymo, which is nineteen% of Waymo collision stories. Cruise security drivers had been at fault in 14 circumstances, or 13% of Cruise collisions.
It’s speculative to make any conclusions from this collision information — there merely isn’t sufficient information but. For views we are able to take a look at U.S. crash charges utilizing 2019 information because it was a “regular” 12 months for crash statistics. The U.S. crash charges elevated in 2020 and 2021 attributable to aggressive and speedy drivers.
The NHTSA Visitors Security Truth publication for 2019 exhibits the info beneath. NHTSA additionally calculated crash charges per 100 million car miles travelled (VMT).
- 2019 VMT: 3.262 billion
- 2019 Complete police reported crashes: 6,756 ⇒ Crashes per 100M VMT=208
- 2019 Fatality crashes: 32,244 (36,096 complete fatalities) ⇒ Fatalities per 100M VMT=1.10
- 2019 Harm crashes: 1,916 (2,740K complete accidents) ⇒ Accidents per 100M VMT=84
- 2019 Property–solely crashes: 4,806 ⇒ Property crashes per 100M VMT=147
In 2020 and 2021, the U.S. fatality charge grew to 1.34 and 1.33 per 100M VMT, respectively.
California PUC Knowledge
The traits of the AV miles within the quarterly information collected by the California PUC is the important thing for getting the permits for robotaxi service in California. Cruise and Waymo are the leaders and are more likely to be the primary to deploy such companies in California, with San Francisco as the primary space.
A earlier column has California PUC information via November 2021 for different corporations.
Eight corporations have acquired drivered AV permits from PUC: Argo.ai, AutoX, Cruise, DeepRoute.ai, Pony.ai, Voyage Auto, Waymo, and Zoox. The permits for Pony.ai and Voyage have been suspended. Cruise is the one firm that has acquired a driverless allow from the California PUC.
The California PUC is accumulating AV utilization information to trace using electrical automobiles and the effectivity of AV operations in phrases distance earlier than passenger pickup and the car’s ready time for passengers. The subsequent desk summarizes Waymo and Cruise information and the full for all corporations. The 2022 information is just for January and February. The California PUC will report March–Could information in early July 2022.
AVs used
The California PUC information exhibits that Waymo has used essentially the most AVs and reached 301 drivered AVs in February. Cruise peaked at 69 drivered AVs in 2021 and is switching to driverless AVs in 2022 with 19 in February 2022. It’s possible that Waymo will obtain a driverless AV allow within the close to future.
Complete AVs utilized by all allow holders had been 104 in 2019 and 107 in 2020. This grew to 337 in 2021. Complete AVs in 2022 was 320 in February 2022 however is more likely to develop as different corporations restart their testing after the pandemic.
Complete miles pushed
Relating to complete AV miles, Waymo is once more the overwhelming chief with over 2.7 million drivered miles from 2019 via February 2022. This provides Waymo over 95% of the drivered miles within the California PUC information. In 2019 and 2020, Waymo was driving in Palo Alto-Mountain View areas. In 2021, Waymo’s driving shifted to San Francisco.
Cruise has been driving in San Francisco beginning in 2020. Its drivered milage is barely 915 miles because it shifted to a driverless allow in November 2021. Complete driverless AV miles had been 3.8 thousand at finish of February. Cruise is the one firm with a driverless allow from the California PUC.
EV miles
Since California is the U.S. chief in EV use, it’s no shock they wish to have statistics on robotaxi EV utilization. For all corporations from 2019 to 2022, EV miles accounted for 70.1% or over 2.01 million miles. Waymo didn’t use EVs in 2019 and 2020 however was at 99% in 2021 and 2022. Cruise solely used EVs in all of AV testing — drivered and driverless.
Idling time
All robotaxi corporations need minimal idling time since it’s one parameter that improves operational effectivity. Waymo accounted for 87.9% of all idling time or over 79 thousand hours.
The California PUC information has no measure for complete hours of robotaxi operation. This makes it tough to evaluate idling time. If we assume that the common pace of Waymo’s AVs was 15 mph, the driving time for Waymo’s 2.7 million miles could be 180 thousand hours. This provides an idling time plus driving time of practically 260 thousand hours. With this common pace guess, idling time for Waymo is then 30% of complete operational time, which appears on the excessive facet.
AV miles to passenger pickup
That is one other vital robotaxi operational parameter. For all AV corporations, the AV miles earlier than passenger pickup was 133,540 miles, which is 4.7% of complete miles. Waymo had 131,411 miles earlier than passenger pickup or 4.86% of Waymo’s complete miles from 2019 via February 2022.
AV passengers
Complete passenger transport for all AV corporations was practically 85,476 from 2019 to February 2022. Waymo was dominant with 68,480 passengers or 80% of complete.
Cruise carried 1,844 passengers together with passengers from each drivered and driverless AVs. The driverless AVs accounted for over 75% of Cruise’s complete passengers.
Abstract
This column compares Waymo and Cruise’s AV testing in California as they’re main the parade to future robotaxi companies with San Francisco being the possible first metropolis to comprehend such companies.
The California DMV requires stories of any collisions the place AVs are concerned. From 2015 via 2021, a complete of 393 collision stories had been filed for all corporations that examined AVs in these seven years. Waymo reported 149 collisions whereas Cruise reported 167. The overwhelming majority of those collision stories are brought on by different automobiles or street customers — not by the AVs.
A extra detailed evaluation of 260+ collision stories for 2019-2021 and a part of 2022 was accomplished for Waymo and Cruise. By studying and analyzing these stories, the fault was assessed for every collision. Primarily based on this evaluation, it appeared just like the AVs may very well be blamed to have prompted the collision in three of the 161 collision stories. A Waymo AV working in AV mode accounted for 2 of the collisions whereas Cruise was at fault in a single collision.
The AV security drivers had been at fault in 41 collisions — 27 for Waymo and 14 for Cruise. The remaining 217 collisions had been brought on by different automobiles and street customers, which is 83% of complete incidents.
It’s tough to attract conclusions from the collision information and simpler to pose questions. What does it imply that Waymo and Cruise had been at fault in an estimated 3 of 261 collision report? Can we calculate significant collision information per 100 million miles for Waymo and Cruise’s complete AV miles? We want extra information to reply these and different questions.
Waymo has been the dominant participant within the California PUC AV testing by way of AVs used, miles pushed, EV miles, and passengers. Waymo accounted for over 95% of AV miles pushed, practically 94% of EV miles, and over 80% of passengers transported. The subsequent step for Waymo is to obtain a driverless allow from the California PUC.
Cruise is the chief in driverless AV testing since it’s the solely firm with a PUC driverless license. The subsequent step for Cruise was to obtain a PUC allow to cost clients for robotaxi companies, which occurred on June 2, 2022.
