Autonowashing And Waymo’s Approach To Fully Autonomous Vehicles
Waymo is a self-driving car company, but they don’t particularly like using that terminology. Instead they prefer fully autonomous as a more accurate way to describe driverless or autonomous driving technology. What consumers may not fully understand is the difference between self-driving and fully autonomous. A self-driving car is a type of vehicle that can provide some level of automation like ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) or automatic cruise control. It still requires driver attention for proper operation or it can lead to accidents. A fully autonomous driving mode does not require driver attention and provides full automation without driver intervention. It seems Waymo is making that distinction to educate consumers. While self-driving cars can also be fully autonomous, by default self-driving cars are not fully autonomous.
Let’s Talk Autonomous Driving
EV car company Tesla is already road testing what they call beta FSD (Full Self Driving). This is the feature that aims to deliver fully autonomous SAE Level 5 driving for Tesla’s car models. It can be added through a software update as a value added feature. There are reports that FSD is actually not at Level 5 yet, but is still a Level 2 system. That means it will still require driver intervention for proper operation of the vehicle. The driver can intervene at any moment of self-driving operation. In fully autonomous mode the car makes all the decisions independent of the driver. The closest to fully autonomous SAE certified self-driving car as of early 2021, is the Level 3 Honda Legend Hybrid EX.
To better educate the public, Waymo came up with a campaign called Let’s Talk Autonomous Driving (LTAD). The LTAD consists of partners like AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah, National Safety Council and organizations that include The Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas. The target audience of the Waymo campaign is diverse based on the partnerships. One of the main points the educators make is that autonomous driving is a more accurate terminology for describing fully autonomous vehicles that do not require a driver behind the wheel.
Autonowashing
Liza Dixon, a usability engineer and researcher, coined the term autonowashing (original article available from this link) as being misleading information regarding self-driving cars. This is because the marketing of some automakers do not provide accurate details for consumers. An example she gave was “Assistive is not autonomous”. While avid car enthusiasts may understand that assistive driving features are not autonomous, many will not know the distinction.
According to Dixon:
“I would really like everyone who reads an article, who reads a story, who hears something from a friend related to vehicle automation to be cautiously skeptical.”
What we need to understand is that not all self-driving features are fully autonomous. As long as the car’s operation requires a driver, it cannot be called fully autonomous or full self-driving. It does not meet SAE Level 4 or Level 5 standards. With that said, self-driving features include a car that can parallel park by itself, automatically brake during traffic or make a lane change. When using these features, the driver has to indicate it by enabling them first. Those operations are not considered autonomous unless the car’s system made the decision on its own.
The problem is that consumers might assume that just because they bought a self-driving car means it can drive by itself and make decisions on the road. There have been accidents involving the use of self-driving features. Some have led to fatalities like the Tesla Autopilot crash in California and an Uber road test in Arizona. In both incidents, human error was to blame, as the car’s own self-driving system did not prevent the accident. The fatalities could have been avoided if the drivers were not distracted behind the wheel. Investigators found evidence that in both accidents, the drivers were not paying attention to the road. This goes to show that consumers, when considering buying self-driving cars, should not assume that they are automatically capable of autonomous driving.
Autonomous Driving Must Be Explained
Despite the many hours Waymo has invested in testing their vehicles, there still remains many challenges. The reach of their service is not even that broad to make autonomous driving truly ready for the mainstream. They have confined their pilot testing in the Glendale, AZ area where it is tightly regulated. There are so many unpredictable variables when it comes to automating driving, that despite the best efforts from the use of AI and sensor technology they are still not close to a working solution. The use of machine learning models with computer vision that incorporate LiDAR is Waymo’s main system configuration. Things improve with every successful road test and the more data that is collected.
Overall, claims of true autonomous driving cannot be claimed by any automaker at the moment (in early 2021). Automakers should be responsible enough to make sure that consumers understand fully autonomous vehicles from those that make use of some self-driving capabilities. More knowledge could have prevented accidents in the past, but expectations were high regarding the product. The common understanding of self-driving is that the car is capable of driving itself. Unfortunately that is not the case, so knowing the facts is better for the safety of all drivers.
