Uber is still far from a fully autonomous machine.

Now several companies are engaged in the development of computer control systems for cars. These are Tesla, Mercedes, Audi, Volvo, Google and even KAMAZ. Not so long ago, Uber also decided to create its own robotic mobile. Now the project to develop robotic taxis from Uber is at an early stage of development, there is still a lot to be done. Nevertheless, the company itself quite rosyly describes its new systems.

Is everything all right in reality? Specialists of the Uber division engaged in the creation of robots, recently prepared a report on the work done. The report itself has recently fallen into the hands of Recode journalists, so now it’s possible to understand whether the project is developing and, if so, how successful.

The main thing that is worth knowing is that Uber romance mobiles are already driving on roads in test mode. The number of kilometers rolled up gradually increases, although the total distance is very small. In addition, the control systems of such cars are still far from perfect. This can be explained by the fact that Uber began working on his project of robots recently.
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In the same Google, it all started much earlier, in 2009. Robomobils of the “corporation of good” are improved from year to year, the developers are gradually improving them. But Google is not going smoothly: drivers sometimes have to take control of the car in their hands, because computer control is far from ideal.

Uber aggressively continues to work on their robotaksi. According to the company, the creation of a computer control system for cars is a critical task on which the future of the service depends. If everything works out, the company will be able to increase profitability. If the car was driven by a robot, not a person, the profit from one trip would be higher than it is now - in the long term, operating a computer is a cheaper option than working with human drivers.



Last week, Uber's romobombs were able to cover a distance of 32,750 km. This is a record, since usually such cars do not pass more than 30,000 km per week. The distance covered by Uber cars last month was only about 8,000 km. For 30 thousand kilometers of robotaksi, they rolled only in December last year and now. In February, the distance covered was approximately 29,000 km. By the way, Uber now owns about 43 cars with a computer control system.

Test rides are carried out not only "empty", but also with passengers. For example, last week alone, the company's autonomous vehicles made 930 trips with passengers in Pittsburgh and 150 trips in Phoenix. So far, the most active tests Uber conducts in Pittsburgh. In this city, UberX service robobies make about 800 trips here per week. Now driving a robotic taxi from Uber is always a driver who takes control in case of any problems.

Unfortunately, the quality has not yet been converted into quantity. Despite the increase in the total number of cars with a computer control system and the increase in the number of kilometers traveled, the number of control interceptions by drivers is increasing. On the road, there are always some situations with which the computer cannot cope, and then a person has to work.

Uber uses several criteria to assess the progress of their robotaxi:

1. The average distance traveled by a car without human intervention until the driver takes control (for any possible reason);
2. The same indicator, only up to the moment when the driver takes control in a critical situation, in case there is a threat of collision with an obstacle;
3. The average distance traveled by the mobiles independently between non-critical incidents, such as sudden braking at a crossroads or an error in navigation, when there was no threat of collision with an obstacle.

Statistics for the period from March 1 to March 8. On average, the Uber robotici passed 1.3 km on their own, until the driver had to take control for any of the reasons. The reasons may be very different. For example, the car went beyond the limits of the markings or the computer control system began to behave incorrectly during bad weather. 1.3 km in March is less than at the beginning of the year, when this figure was about 1.5 km

As for the second criterion, here the situation is gradually improving. Last week, the company reported about approximately 321 km of autonomous driving without critical problems like the threat of a collision. True, chance may play a role here, since the previous week this figure was about 140 km. In general, the dynamics are not very stable: there are both falling and mileage increases without critical incidents (graph below, distance on the graph in miles).



Finally, there are no improvements on the third criterion either. On the contrary, since January the situation has only worsened. The average distance traveled by Uber cars without incidents of any type is about 3 km.



As you can see, talk about the full autonomy of the robotic Uber is still very far away. It is necessary to do a lot of work on the improvement of the computer control system, before talking about at least partial autonomy. In general, experts believe that it will be possible to talk about progress when the AI ​​comes out of the embryonic state in which systems of this type are located now. When this happens is a big question.

The closest to the coveted line came Google, or rather, its division Waymo (now Waymo is suing Uber). According to the company's report, the average distance traveled by its mobiles without human intervention is about 8,050 km. This is much more than the Uber (1.3 km). But Google has much more time. To date, the car of this company dashed along the roads of California and other regions already 800 thousand kilometers. It is worth noting that the corporation immediately began to test their robomobili on special tracks, gradually taking the car to public roads. In Uber they decided to start right off the roads, which complicates the task.

By the way, Tesla collected a huge amount of data from all the on-board computers of its cars - its cars skated about 2 billion (this is not a typo) kilometers. However, how often drivers take control instead of the Autopilot system is unknown - the company does not provide such data.