Toyota’s cars alone, he figured, log perhaps one trillion miles of annual travel around the globe. Making a robocar perform in controlled demonstrations is easy, Mr. Pratt says, such as having it effortlessly avoid hay bales tossed in front of it. Making a robocar so foolproof that consumers and automakers can trust it with their lives, including in one-in-a-billion situations, is very different. Consider Cadillac’s Super Cruise the digital disciplinarian that makes drivers sit straight and keep eyes up front. In some Tesla crashes, driver overconfidence in Autopilot’s abilities, leading to inattention, appears to have played a role.

Source: New York Times June 20, 2019 18:56 UTC