Uber had a net income of 9.86 billion dollars and spent 7.14 billion in operations in 2024. That’s a single transportation company. Do you really think Uber or anyone else is going to ignore researching the technology that could significantly reduce their billions in operations costs?
I’m also not so sure that Europe is 20x safer than the US. A quick search pulled up the International Transport Form’s Road Safety Annual Report 2023 and their data disagrees. The US, even with its really poor showing in the general numbers, is safer than Poland and Czechia (Road fatalities per billion vehicle‑kilometres, 2021). I could see an argument for a 2x gap of Europe outdoing the US, but a 20x? Citation needed.
They’re not saying general road safety is 20x better. They’re comparing an automated car ONLY on surface streets with lights, intersections, pedestrians, dogs, left turns, etc… to a professional truck driver mostly on highway miles.
That’s fair. Comparing regular drivers doing typical city trips to commercial big rigs is a bit apples-and-oranges. I wonder how CDL data would compare when the self-driving semi-trucks start putting on miles. Aurora is about to launch in that exact space.
I’m honestly more scared of that. Professional CDL drivers are WAY better at driving than other people. But their trucks are way more dangerous and harder to handle. So putting driverless tech in that is going to be harder and more dangerous.
Uber had a net income of 9.86 billion dollars and spent 7.14 billion in operations in 2024. That’s a single transportation company. Do you really think Uber or anyone else is going to ignore researching the technology that could significantly reduce their billions in operations costs?
I’m also not so sure that Europe is 20x safer than the US. A quick search pulled up the International Transport Form’s Road Safety Annual Report 2023 and their data disagrees. The US, even with its really poor showing in the general numbers, is safer than Poland and Czechia (Road fatalities per billion vehicle‑kilometres, 2021). I could see an argument for a 2x gap of Europe outdoing the US, but a 20x? Citation needed.
They’re not saying general road safety is 20x better. They’re comparing an automated car ONLY on surface streets with lights, intersections, pedestrians, dogs, left turns, etc… to a professional truck driver mostly on highway miles.
That’s fair. Comparing regular drivers doing typical city trips to commercial big rigs is a bit apples-and-oranges. I wonder how CDL data would compare when the self-driving semi-trucks start putting on miles. Aurora is about to launch in that exact space.
I’m honestly more scared of that. Professional CDL drivers are WAY better at driving than other people. But their trucks are way more dangerous and harder to handle. So putting driverless tech in that is going to be harder and more dangerous.