California’s Department of Motor Vehicles released its annual autonomous vehicle disengagement report today. In the report, all companies that are actively testing self-driving cars on public roads in the Golden State disclose the number of miles driven and the frequency in which human drivers were forced to take control of their driverless vehicles. The biggest takeaway is that this is still Waymo (née Google) and GM’s party, and everyone else is playing catch-up.
Waymo says it drove a total of 352,545 miles autonomously in California for the 12-month period that ended November 2017. That’s a steep drop from the number of miles driven in 2016 — 635,868 miles — which highlights the fact that Waymo has moved much of its fleet to Phoenix in advance of the launch of its commercial ride-hailing service. Waymo also reported that it had a paltry number of disengagements, 63, for the entire year.
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