California Posts On-Road Test Results for Self-Driving Cars

Developers that are testing self-driving technologies on public roads in California say their autonomous vehicles are getting smarter. But the distance the cars can travel without human intervention varies dramatically, underscoring the work yet to be done.

California requires testers to file annual reports about miles traveled in automatic mode on the state’s public roads. Developers also must reveal the number of “disengagements,” meaning incidents in which a human driver assumes control because the technology fails or becomes confused by driving conditions.

Reuters reports that Waymo, the former Google autonomous car project, says its test cars logged 600,000 miles of autonomous driving in California last year. Disengagements dropped 75% to 124 for an average of one incident every 5,000 miles.

General Motors Co.’s test cars racked up about 10,000 miles of automatic driving, averaging a disengagement every 150 miles.

Tesla Inc. reports that its four-car test fleet logged 550 miles and experienced a disengagement every 3.5 miles, according to Reuters.

Ford and Mercedes-Benz each say they each covered fewer than 1,000 miles of testing in California last year. Honda and Volkswagen did all their evaluations of autonomous technologies at private facilities in 2016.