Tesla and Apple are engaged with self-driving, but both are behind the real leaders.
Tesla is pursuing a different technology from Waymo and Cruise.
Apple is testing tech, but racking up very few miles.
Every year, the California Department of Motor vehicles releases a Disengagement Report for companies that are authorized to operate and test self-driving vehicles on the state s roads. The report is controversial, mainly because it s effectively just raw data. But it can in some cases provide insight into how autonomous-mobility firms are progressing, as they push toward commercializing their technologies and services.
For example, General Motors standalone autonomy unit, Cruise, racked up over 770,000 self-driven miles in 2020, as the company noted in a Medium post last week. Cruise pointed out that disengagements that s when the autonomous system disconnects and a human safety driver has to take over declined to zero in the last three months of the year.
In 2020, Tesla had the best year in the nearly two-decade history of the company.
2021 could be even better, thanks to the Biden presidency.
Biden has a plan to push for EVs and a greener US economy.
If you think Tesla had a great 2020, brace yourself for an even better 2021. Elon Musk s company, the most valuable in the global auto industry, is ideally positioned to benefit from everything the newly installed Biden administration has planned.
If you take scientists warnings about the dire consequences of ignoring global warming, then you know we have about a decade to act and act decisively, on a worldwide scale, to avoid a catastrophe. Biden isn t going to waste four years in the White House, and for at least the next two years, he has a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress to turn his agenda into laws.