Driverless cars are a dead-end technology

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]Um, you know, one of the things I when I this p this illustration, uh, is from that story I did for motor one. And one of the the stats that kind of blew me away when I wrote it down because I it seemed like it wasn't right. Uh, Mercedes-Benz's drive pilot, the the um level three system generates 34 gigabytes of data per minute operation.

[00:00:22]um what you know estimates have basically estimates have basically said that you know 4,000 gig a day is a pretty good idea of how much data a self-driving car will generate um and of course like getting through that amount of data is just incredibly challenging and you know this is kind of where you start seeing like a lot of AI people start to slide in like oh we can just you know get rid of all of this extra data and we just can rely we can figure things out you know sort of based off of machine learning or whatever. Uh, and I'm not a big proponent of that. So, it still leaves you with the requirement of I have to get through 34 gigs of data a minute at like >> literally blink of the eye reflexes constantly.

[00:01:04]>> And that's to drive a car 35 miles an hour in a traffic jam in sunlight.

[00:01:09]>> Yeah. Uh, feels like a very good use of the extremely limited battery power that cars will um uh have.

[00:01:16]>> Yeah. If if every car on Earth were self-driving, it would use four times it would use four orders of magnitude more computing power than all of Facebook's data centers put together.

[00:01:28]>> Incredible.

[00:01:29]>> It would require more electricity than Argentina, >> the country.

[00:01:33]>> Yeah.

[00:01:34]>> Yeah.

[00:01:34]>> So, it's, you know, computationally and power-wise, you kind of run into some constraints.

[00:01:38]>> Yeah. And we'll we'll we'll we'll get there. We will get there because Oh, boy. Um, so then we get so so like in our story of hype versus reality, we get to we we we we see Whimo and here we've got the the Zeer uh version of of of Whimo's kind of tech. This is their latest, I think, right? Or or possibly even six. I'm just double checking to make sure.

[00:01:57]>> Yeah, I think this is the gen.

[00:01:59]So I suppose >> it's a Gily Gil. I always forget how to pronounce it. That's a Chinese um automaker.

[00:02:04]>> Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um and and so this is where so so we we've we know what level two is. I I guess level one is just lane assist. Is it stuff like that?

[00:02:12]>> Uh level zero is like automatic emergency braking. The car intervenes to maybe help you avoid a car accident, but it's not actually doing anything. Uh level one is lane centering or adaptive cruise. And then level two is lane centering and adaptive cruise. So the car is like actively handling both steering and brake. That's all level two is. And like that's you know how Yeah, there's there's the chart for it. Um, and so like every system that you've interacted with most likely, unless you're a very rare person who owns a 7 series in California and like or a S-Class and opted into like Drive Pilot or something, you've driven a level two car. There is no level two plus according to SAPE.

[00:02:51]>> Level two plus is just like, hey, you can move your hands because I'm really good at doing lane centering and braking, but that's it. That's all the car is actually promising you it can do.

[00:02:59]And the the legal implic.

[00:03:03]>> Um level three is you know SA puts as a traffic jam shifer which is what drive pilot is. Yeah.

[00:03:09]>> And then level four is uh Whimo. You know level four is what Cruz was trying to attain which was uh >> the car can drive itself in limited situations. You know Whimo just started driving on freeways in LA. So, you know, for the longest time they wouldn't even go on highways because they didn't want to be in high speed situations. Um, yeah, they were mostly like surface street operation. Um, and you know, they've reached a point now where I think I think the new Zakers may not have wheels in them, but they usually they had sh safety shifters, you know, as I referred to earlier for quite a while.

[00:03:46]>> So, they have the wheel, but it's in the global south >> like essentially.

[00:03:50]>> Well, and that was that was cruises.

[00:03:51]Whimo actually had the person sitting in the driver's seat. Uber also had an interesting case of this. It was I think 2018. Um Uber had somebody in the car physically with it who was supposed to be monitoring the car and there was a case where the car hit and killed somebody um and the driver didn't see them because they were kind of like not paying close attention because the car was supposedly self-driving. That person actually got charged with uh negligent homicide.

[00:04:16]>> Oh my goodness. Right. Uber I don't think had anything happened to them.

[00:04:19]catch this moment which is like this moment to just say what are the inherent behavioral things here as like from a railway perspective and a safety perspective I've designed safe system work and ergonomics is a really important way of think way to think about safe systems at work and a way the the reason why a lot of this stuff is a real problem and really raises a lot of safety red flags for me is having someone have to suddenly become suddenly instantly get situational awareness whether you're the driver whether you're the owner, you know, it's your own vehicle and you've had some form of of, you know, you've had level three activated or you've had level two activated for a bit and you're suddenly expected to be to be tuning in, whatever it is, like to suddenly go, "Oh, I need to suddenly have situational awareness is not a it's not a good way to have a a safety response when seconds, you know, you've got seconds at play before something bad happens." And this this was yeah this was 2019 was when the case actually reached the courts and uh yeah and in the level three case with Uber they were like the person who's supposed to be handling this who was I think I think the driver was on their phone. Um you know they that was it was their fault Uber's not at fault you know and so that's still kind of like a well this is supposed to be level three the car is supposed to be handling things like no actually.

[00:05:34]>> Yeah. And then obviously you throw the worker under the bus in that situation and um yeah it's yeah not uh not great.

[00:05:40]So >> yeah and that's you know and your unpaid gig driver basically.

[00:05:43]>> Yeah exactly. Um and so yeah so that coming back to the Whimo I suppose that's so so the Whimo the gen six as it were the generation six is um it has a remote operator now. So it's not the original Whimo where you've got the driver that's a remote operator who obviously they always talk down the remote operator. never give any data about how many remote operators how many times remote operators are stepping in.

[00:06:05]They don't give they they're very um un you know they often like just don't mention the fact there is an external driver at all in any of their press stuff. I know to what extent >> so what does they have in at least the the IPACE is that that was the Gen 5 car they had somebody that they called uh I want I've got their site up because I want to get the wording correct. Um they called it fleet response which was the car encounters a situation it is scared of and it basically dials into somebody and says help me get through this. Yeah.

[00:06:38]And so the you you they weren't actually remotely handling control of the car over to somebody. The person was basically like te teaching training the the computer on board how to get through a scenario that was difficult. Um I don't know what they're doing with the gen six ones because these like just came out.

[00:06:53]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the thing is there was always >> they refused to drive remotely fully because there was no way to get the network connection going.

[00:06:59]>> Oh really?

[00:07:00]>> That was the thing with Whimo is they were like absolutely not.

[00:07:03]>> Yes.

[00:07:04]>> Because we cannot rely on the on the signal to not Yeah. That's that's that's an interesting point. Okay. So in which case so having gone through the practicalities of I suppose did we answer did we answer the question will they ever exist? I I suppose with the Whimo picture up, do you think we're going to be in a situation where we actually have cars that are I I >> you can you can take what is a theoretically driverless taxi ride in certain cities in the US that are notably very sunny and you know on specific streets they'll avoid routing that they consider to be too challenging. But I mean yes there isn't a person there. Now is there is there any reason to do this beyond the hope that the tech progresses further?

[00:07:44]Absolutely not because they are dumping billions of dollars into this tech and they are not anywhere near profitable.

[00:07:49]Yeah. So, you know, and that's the other thing, too, is that like I don't know what it is for the Gen 6 cars, but uh about four years ago, the CEO of Whimo said they were spending about $180,000 per car. Um this is when they had the Pacificas, which were like the previous gen and the iPaces. Um and so that's like all of your sensors and that's the car itself, but that's still a ton of money. um that you're really, you know, one of the things that Uber had figured out is that by sort of making uh taxi driving a gig economy thing. Um they didn't have to worry about paying their drivers living wages obviously, but they also didn't have to worry about maintaining a fleet of cars, which you know, you still have to do with like the cars still depreciate. They still have to be maintained. You know, they they still need to like they're still going to accumulate wear and tear as >> they're now full clamber in and out.

[00:08:37]>> Yeah. They're now full of tech which is instantly obsolete. Uh >> well yeah I mean it's and that's the thing with Whimo is that like you can tell that their cars because they've invested heavily in like a combination of sensors which is I think the correct way to pursue this. You know they're there's a lot of money kind of sitting glued to those cars and they not really useful as a ton else once you've done that.