The Weekly AV News Review

Waymo studies self-driving vs. human driving insurance claims

• Waymo partnered with insurance group Swiss Re to release a study showing how safe the Waymo driverless vehicles are compared to human drivers. According to the study, Waymo’s driverless vehicles experienced 76% fewer accidents involving property damage compared human-driven cars. For every million miles traveled, human drivers filed 3.26 property damage claims compared to 0.78 for Waymo’s driverless cars. Critics of this study and many like it argue there is not enough data yet to make these assertions. Waymo and Swiss Re have not yet released the data underpinning the study, but say they plan to in the future.   

BMW partners with Amazon on self-driving data management

• BMW announced it is strengthening its relationship with Amazon by using Amazon Web Service (AWS) to manage data from BMW’s autonomous vehicle project. BMW has been using AWS to handle their data coming from their connected cars, but now is looking to expand that relationship to manage data related to “generative artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, machine learning, and storage capabilities to help accelerate the delivery of highly automated BMW vehicles.” The purpose of this integration is to prepare for BMWs launch of the “Neue Klasse” platform – future electric cars with self-driving technology.

Tyson foods partners with autonomous trucking partner

• Self-driving technology is quickly touching all parts of transportation. Last week, Tyson Foods partnered with Gatlik who provides technology to allow trucks to operate without a human driver. Tyson will transport products 12 miles from one of Arkansas facility to another. While this route is just a pilot, the solution has the potential to save the company up to $900k a year in transportation costs. Gatlik is currently providing self-driving vehicles for Walmart and plans to have human drivers in the trucks until they have established routes and more safety data.

American consumers haven’t come around on EVs

• Michael Dunne recently released an opinion piece in which he shares the reasons he believes why Americans have not fully embraced electric vehicles (EVs). He begins by giving statistics on where the US is compared to China and Europe regarding EV market penetration. China sits at 30%, Europe at 15%, but the US is only at a small 7%. He gives 10 factors as to why this is occurring and argues the most important of all is American driving habits. There are many more SUVs and trucks on American roads compared to China and Europe. To make EVs this size you must have a very large battery which makes the vehicle more expensive. You must also maintain an aesthetically pleasing design, which matters to the American consumer. Finally he states that “America will have a hard time getting to higher levels of EV penetration until there are technology breakthroughs like solid state batteries that deliver more range at lower cost.”

Mercedes-Benz will launch its high-speed EV charging hubs this fall

• The charging network will be open to all EV drivers regardless of the brand. The first locations will be in Chengdu, China, Mannheim, Germany, and Atlanta, GA. The overall plan is to have 2,000 charging hubs by the end of the year and over 10,000 charging points over the next 7 years. This move may be seen as a challenge to Tesla’s current supercharger network which offers speeds of up to 250kW. The proposed Mercedes-Benz network will offer speeds of up to 400kW. Franz Reiner, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Mobility had this to say, “With the Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging Network, we are expanding global charging options and setting new standards in electric vehicle charging.”