Motor vehicles that can drive themselves, also known as self-driving cars, autonomous vehicles, or AVs, are considered to be far safer than regular automobiles. However, the nagging issue remains, just how safe are autonomous vehicles at the moment? The short answer is we are not there yet.
Regardless of the incredible time and effort going into the technology of self-driving vehicles, fully autonomous cars are still unavailable for the general public except at special trial programs. Many vehicles today have started incorporating features from autonomous driving like automatic braking and handling simple highway driving but we are still a long way from fully autonomous cars.
With most companies in the industry scrambling to get the first working fully autonomous vehicle out to the public, a lot of testing is being conducted in the background. In this report, our Phoenix car accident lawyers compiled the largest list of interesting autonomous vehicle statistics and facts.
Autonomous (Self-Driving) Car Statistics
- The first known autonomous vehicle to be introduced was revealed to the world in 1930. General Motors was creating a future vision of the world when they introduced a self-driving vehicle. The car used radio-controlled electromagnetic fields that were generated by spikes embedded in the road.
- The first working autonomous motor vehicle was developed by the Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory in Japan in 1977. Using two on-board cameras, the vehicle could process images of the road ahead and it could drive by itself at a speed of 20MPH.
- According to autonomous cars data, 55 percent of small companies anticipate they will have a completely autonomous fleet over the next two decades.
- According to the Brookings Institution, 61 percent of adult internet users said they would be uncomfortable riding in a self-driving vehicle.
- According to studies, just 57 percent of those who are familiar with self-driving cars are eager to ride in one.
- 75 percent of individuals would prefer to drive a car than ride in one that is self-driving.
- The self-driving car sector is growing at a rate of 16 percent each year worldwide. The belief in this technology has resulted in massive financial investments. This market is expected to be worth a trillion dollars by 2025, according to estimates.
- In October 2021, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued an order requiring motor vehicle companies working on autonomous driving technology to report any serious crash within a day of learning about it. Additionally, companies are required to submit an in-depth report within 10 days of the incident.
- According to autonomous vehicle data, the worldwide AV market is presently worth $54 billion.
- All autonomous vehicles need to include a stop button that can be used in case of emergency.
- 16 percent of people would be comfortable allowing a completely autonomous car to drive them about, even if it meant they would have no control.
- In the United States, 75% of people want Congress to try to put a stop to self-driving vehicles, indicating that there are still some safety worries about the technology’s future.
- Even if money was not a problem, 57 percent of consumers indicated they would not feel comfortable buying a self-driving car, according to self-driving car data.
- Life and death decisions cannot be taught to any vehicle, according to half of US women and two-thirds of men.
- Currently in 2021, over 80 firms are actively testing more than 1,400 self-driving cars, trucks, and other vehicles in 36 states and Washington, DC.
- China has the potential to become the greatest market for self-driving cars in the world. According to Mckinsey, autonomous cars might account for up to 66 percent of passenger kilometers driven by 2040.
- Overall, autonomous vehicles (AVs) were involved in more crashes: 9.1 crashes per million miles traveled, compared to 4.1 for conventional cars. However, as compared to injuries experienced in traditional vehicle collisions, the ones involving injury were minor.
- In 2015, a self-driving Audi dubbed The Roadrunner completed a 9-day journey from San Francisco to New York. It covered a distance of 3400 miles while passing through 15 states. Despite the presence of a driver, the Audi completed 99 percent of the journey on its own.
- When a driverless automobile is driven on difficult routes with hills and tight bends, its Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology benefits greatly.
- Due to their unique technological characteristics, auto insurance for self-driving cars is more expensive. It’s easy to see how the emergence of self-driving cars will have a significant impact on the auto insurance industry.
- Self-driving technology is not only for passenger cars. The technology will be utilized for many other applications including tractors, big-rig trucks, and many other commercial vehicles. Self-driving tractors have been in use in agriculture since 2011.
- It’s alleged that during the night, autonomous vehicles can see better than people. This is accomplished by using a combination of high-resolution cameras and radar to precisely assess the car’s surroundings while it is in motion.
- Self-Driving vehicles help reduce fuel economy by up to 10%.
- 33% of drivers in the United States believe that semi-autonomous technologies in automobiles, such as automatic park assist, lane departure sensors, and self-driving autopilot, are seen to make people better drivers.
- Self-driving vehicles will account for a reduction in waiting time for taxis of 88% while using 15% less parking space.
- The production of self-driving cars is expected to reach 800,000 units worldwide between the years 2023-2030.
- A report published by the accounting giant KMPG predicts that by 2050, the adoption of self-driving vehicle technology could reduce the frequency of accidents by approximately 90%.
Tesla Autonomous Car Statistics
- Tesla has used approximately 1.5 petabytes of training data for the release of their autonomous driving model.
- The first autonomous fatal car accident was when a Tesla Model S crashed into an 18-wheeler on the freeway in 2016. The driver had engaged autopilot and neglected to pay attention to the road.
- According to new crash data, Tesla vehicles are more likely to crash with an emergency response vehicle such as an ambulance or a fire truck when on autopilot mode.
- According to Tesla’s head of AI and computer vision, Tesla cars have driven 3 billion miles on Autopilot, of which 1 billion have been driven using Navigate on Autopilot.
- With autopilot disengaged and without active safety features, Tesla vehicles were involved in one accident for every 978,000 miles driven in Q1 2021, which is down from every 1.42 million miles driven in Q1 2020.
- With autopilot Engaged, Tesla vehicles were involved in one accident for every 4.19 million miles driven in Q1 2021, which is actually down from one every 4.68 million miles driven in Q1 2020.
- Up to date, there have been a total of 6 deaths from fatal car accidents where the driver was using autopilot.
- Beginning in May 2021, Tesla announced that they would not use radar in their autonomous vehicle technology, relying purely on vision instead (with eight cameras around the car).
Waymo (Google) Self-Driving Car Statistics
- Initially, Google’s self-driving cars were not supposed to have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal. The California Department of Motor Vehicles, on the other hand, refused to let this be used for testing.
- The National Highway Safety Administration (NHSA) accepted Google’s request for a self-driving automobile without a human driver in 2018. Until then, all self-driving cars had to have at least one human person onboard in case something went wrong.
- Between January and December 2019, Waymo (Google) cars with trained safety drivers traveled 3.8 million miles. Furthermore, between January 2019 and September 2020, their fully autonomous vehicles traveled over 40,000 miles.
- Between 2019 and the first nine months of 2020, Google’s Waymo experienced 18 minor incidents on the road while testing their autonomous driving technology.
Uber Self-Driving Car Statistics
- The first case of a pedestrian fatal accident caused by a self-driving vehicle took place in Tempe, AZ in 2018. An Uber testing autonomous vehicle with a safety backup driver present crashed into a pedestrian pushing a cycle across the street.
- Prior to the fatal crash in 2018, Uber’s self driving vehicles were involved in at least 37 minor crashes.
- In 2020, Uber was again allowed to run autonomous vehicle tests on the roads in California with a backup driver inside the vehicle in case of emergencies.
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