Waymo's disengagement rate drops by half while autonomous driving is multiplied by 3

One of the indicators to clbadify technology and the progress of autonomous driving is to look at the disengagement rate. California requires companies that perform tests in the state to report this figure every year and Waymo registers a net decrease in 2018 as it travels more miles.

A lower disengagement rate shows that our cars are increasingly recognizing and managing a wide variety of driving situations, including "extreme cases" in the cities where we have tested: these unusual situations that a driver can see only once (or never) in a driving life.

Disengagement occurs when a driver responsible for human safety has to take control of the autonomous vehicle following mistakes or to avoid a dangerous situation that the vehicle is not yet equipped to handle. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) today released the annual results of the Alphabet division:

Of the millions of urban miles we have traveled on California highways, our disengagement rate has dropped to 0.09 per 1,000 autonomous miles in 2018 (or 1 disengagement per 11,017 standalone miles). This is a 50% reduction in the rate and a 96% increase in the average distance traveled between the previous year's disengagements (with a rate of 0.18 walkouts per 1,000 miles, which equals 1 clearance per 5 595 autonomous miles).

With a disengagement of 11,017 miles, Waymo's closest competitor is Cruise Automation, owned by GM, at 5,205 miles. Apple's effort is the last to disengage every 1.1 km, although the company does not agree with the metric.

This 50% reduction comes when Waymo travels 1.26 million miles in 2018, compared to just 352,000 miles in 2017. At the same time, the company insists on the real importance of disengagement, as vehicles evolve in new environments. and acquire more skills.

Disengagement in these cases is actually a good thing, because they are equivalent to discovering and solving a problem related to the capabilities of our car. As we continue to expand our test fleet, we are actively looking for challenging locations to give our fleet the opportunity to learn.

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