Uber Faces Headwinds In Self-Driving Efforts
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Uber’s progress toward realizing its dream of a fleet of self-driving vehicles appears to be hitting headwinds. Although the vehicles are rolling across Pennsylvania, California, and Arizona, leaked reports indicate they aren’t improving in a steady way on measurements of rider experience.
Uber breaks this variable down into a few different data streams: how many miles a car makes it before a human takes over for any reason which it calls "miles per intervention," how many miles a car goes before a "critical" driver takeover (to avoid harm or damage) and how many miles a car goes before a "bad experience," a measure of overall ride smoothness that is less focused on safety.
By the miles per intervention measure, Uber’s fleet isn’t doing so hot. In January, an Uber autonomous vehicle could drive .9 miles before a driver takeover. By February, that number had inched up to one full mile before dropping down again to .71 miles. As of last week, it was .8 miles.
When it comes to measures of critical interventions — the scary, accident-avoiding ones — Uber’s metrics are trending upward, albeit erratically. At the start of February, an autonomous vehicle could make it 125 miles without a critical intervention, but the following week that number dipped down to 50 miles. By the third week in February it shot back up to 160 miles before dipping to 115 again the following week. At the last measure, taken the week of March 8, it was up to 196 miles.
By measures of "bad experiences" like hard stops and jerky driving, the fleet is getting worse. In mid-January, Uber self-driving cars averaged 4.5 miles before a bad experience, but by the next month that had dropped down to 2 miles, where the number remained into the first week of March.
Uber breaks this variable down into a few different data streams: how many miles a car makes it before a human takes over for any reason which it calls "miles per intervention," how many miles a car goes before a "critical" driver takeover (to avoid harm or damage) and how many miles a car goes before a "bad experience," a measure of overall ride smoothness that is less focused on safety.
By the miles per intervention measure, Uber’s fleet isn’t doing so hot. In January, an Uber autonomous vehicle could drive .9 miles before a driver takeover. By February, that number had inched up to one full mile before dropping down again to .71 miles. As of last week, it was .8 miles.
When it comes to measures of critical interventions — the scary, accident-avoiding ones — Uber’s metrics are trending upward, albeit erratically. At the start of February, an autonomous vehicle could make it 125 miles without a critical intervention, but the following week that number dipped down to 50 miles. By the third week in February it shot back up to 160 miles before dipping to 115 again the following week. At the last measure, taken the week of March 8, it was up to 196 miles.
By measures of "bad experiences" like hard stops and jerky driving, the fleet is getting worse. In mid-January, Uber self-driving cars averaged 4.5 miles before a bad experience, but by the next month that had dropped down to 2 miles, where the number remained into the first week of March.
