California startups now testing driverless cars on roads

Plans to deploy driverless "ridehailng" vehicles in select areas

SILICON VALLEY, Calif. (CBS) - Self-driving startups like Cruise and Pony.ai have started testing of their "driverless" cars in some parts of California this year, with an additional feature: human drivers.

While there is no driver behind the wheel, there is a safety operator in the passenger seat who "has a red button that can stop the vehicle just in case anything happens," Pony.ai CEO James Peng told Reuters.

The operator will be removed next year when Pony.ai, which has backing from Toyota Motor Corp, plans to deploy its driverless ridehailng vehicles in select areas in California. Still, a remote operator will monitor vehicles and provide guidance when the vehicles run into trouble, Peng said.

Alphabet Inc's Waymo keeps personnel wearing fluorescent yellow vests at the ready to provide roadside assistance for its automated minivans in Phoenix, according to videos and witness of one of its avid riders.

Cruise, majority-owned by General Motors Co, started operating five driverless vehicles in San Francisco at night in October with a human in the front passenger seat. The minder has "the ability to stop the vehicle at any point during the ride," a Cruise spokesperson said.

"Cruise views the development of self-driving vehicles as not only a tech race, but also a trust race. Given that, we keep humans in the loop in testing driverless vehicles not only as a means of safe development, but also, beyond that, in order to build trust with the public," the spokesman said.

Automaker Hyundai Motor has invested in teleoperation startup Ottopia, which will provide remote assistance for the robotaxi fleets by Hyundai's self-driving car joint venture, Motional.

The continued human presence in what are supposed to be software-driven, automated vehicles underscores the challenges facing the automated vehicle industry, which has consumed billions of dollars in investor capital over the past decade.

With no end in sight to the technical and regulatory obstacles to free-range, driverless robo-taxis, some self-driving companies are accepting the need for human minders and scaling down their ambitions so they can start generating revenue in the near future, according to interviews with investors and startup executives.

Even Tesla, which recently launched a new test version of what it calls "Full Self-Driving" software, tells owners that drivers should "be prepared to act immediately, especially around blind corners, crossing intersections, and in narrow driving situations." U.S. safety regulators have opened a formal investigation of the automaker' s Autopilot driver assistance system.

WAYMO'S ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE

Waymo has been developing self-driving tech for more than a decade, and launched the world's first commercial robotaxis in Phoenix in 2018. But the successor to the pioneering Google self-driving car project still keeps humans in the loop.

Waymo told Reuters that it runs four teams monitoring and assisting the fleet, from responding to riders' questions to remotely giving a "second pair of eyes" in tricky situations such as road closure and providing roadside assistance to respond to collision and other incidents.

The teams "work together to orchestrate the operation of our fully autonomous fleet throughout the day," Nathaniel Fairfield, a software engineer at Waymo, said in a statement to Reuters.

Waymo does not operate vehicles by remote control, he said.

"We don't use remote takeover, or "joysticking" because we don't think remote humans actually add safety," he said, citing potential wireless connection problems.

Joel Johnson, a rider who has posted some 70 videos of his rides in Waymo cars on YouTube, has seen only one incident in which the vehicle paused on the street after it was apparently confused with construction cones, prompting a Waymo staff member to come to the rescue, according to the video. Aside from that, Johnson said it's been a smooth experience.

"I have confidence in the car's driving abilities because I've seen it make its own way out of weird situations. I have an extra layer of confidence because, like, as you said, there's people there just in case because technology's not perfect yet," Johnson told Reuters.

Waymo now plans to expand commercial autonomous vehicle operations in San Francisco with safety drivers initially. The company relies on an army of vehicle operators to ramp up testing in the dense and complex environment.

A former Waymo operator who participated in San Francisco testing this year, said that he had to "disengage" and intervene roughly 30 times a day in cases like when the car is not stopping fast enough in front of red lights and vehicles in front.

"You are on your toes about like what's going on…There are times where 'Oh, I did not predict this behavior at all.' 'This behavior doesn't usually happen'," the experienced safety operator said on condition of anonymity because of confidentiality of the operations.

Regulators are keeping humans involved with automated vehicles. California laws "call for a two-way communication link that allows the manufacturer to continuously monitor the (driverless) vehicle's location/status," California Department of Motor Vehicles said in a statement to Reuters.

Other robotaxi companies are using remote operation as a way to get vehicles on the road.