Waymo: Research shows Waymo Driver's self-driving car accident rate is 85% lower than that of human drivers

According to foreign media reports, Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous driving division, released a new safety research report, saying that the performance of its Waymo Driver autonomous driving car is significantly better than that of human drivers. The report shows that the accident rate of its autonomous driving cars is 85% lower than that of human drivers.

Waymo has submitted the study to a scientific journal for peer review, a process that could take several months, according to foreign media reports. In the meantime, some academics have seen the study and said there is reason to be optimistic about the safety of autonomous driving technology.

Foreign media said that the release of Waymo's new report comes at a critical moment in the autonomous driving industry. In October this year, a car from Cruise, Waymo's main competitor and General Motors' autonomous driving subsidiary, hit and dragged a pedestrian while driving in driverless mode, causing serious injuries to the pedestrian.

Cruise suspended its driverless operations in the United States in late October after the accident, and the California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked Cruise's license to operate self-driving taxis in San Francisco. In addition, the accident also caused the company to lose co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt and lay off 24% of its employees.

It is reported that Waymo was developed from Google's self-driving project and was originally established in January 2009 and became an independent company in December 2016. Currently, the company's services cover parts of San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

The company said that in more than 7 million miles driven in the three cities, its vehicles were involved in just three crashes resulting in injuries, two in Phoenix and one in San Francisco.

Waymo's new report comes just one day after LendingTree released another report saying Tesla drivers had the highest accident rate, seemingly in contrast to Tesla's own data showing Autopilot is much safer than human drivers.

From TechWeb