Vehicles tested in California by Waymo, the autonomous car company owned Google parent Alphabet Inc., had a much lower rate of “disengagements” last year, compared with 2015. Disengagements happen when a human tester needs to take control of a self-driving car, either to avoid an accident or respond to technical problems.
Waymo Chief Executive Officer John Krafcik shared the data during a speech on Sunday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. California requires companies with permits to test autonomous vehicles to disclose the metric. The figure is one measure of the effectiveness of the nascent technology in the real world.
In 2015, Alphabet reported 341 disengagements during 424,331 autonomous miles driven in California. That was 0.8 disengagements per thousand miles. In 2016, the rate improved to 0.2, according to Krafcik.
