Wow, this comes off as the first of many hit pieces against Google more than an objective review of the current state of affairs. It wouldn't be surprising to see this as competition picks up.
The entire article is summed up fairly well in this one line "But for all its expertise in developing search technology and software, Google has zero experience building cars."
He effectively ignores the fact that Google is demonstrably farther along in development than any other company. Not to mention this isn't even a problem of building cars, it is a problem of software and AI, both of which Google is slightly more experienced than BMW, Audi, or any of the other companies he mentions.
All of his concerns about the timeline of this work seem to be based on some idea that in ten years, automation will only be ready for "limited highway driving" and that there are a lot of "Uncertain road" issues that aren't accounted for in these estimates. This differs greatly from Google's claims I read last year.
I couldn't bring myself to do more than skim the second half of the article but I saw no actual evidence to support his thesis of automation being farther away than expected (i.e., ten years). I only saw evidence to suggest I shouldn't bank on the auto-makers to get there first.
The entire article is summed up fairly well in this one line "But for all its expertise in developing search technology and software, Google has zero experience building cars."
He effectively ignores the fact that Google is demonstrably farther along in development than any other company. Not to mention this isn't even a problem of building cars, it is a problem of software and AI, both of which Google is slightly more experienced than BMW, Audi, or any of the other companies he mentions.
All of his concerns about the timeline of this work seem to be based on some idea that in ten years, automation will only be ready for "limited highway driving" and that there are a lot of "Uncertain road" issues that aren't accounted for in these estimates. This differs greatly from Google's claims I read last year.
I couldn't bring myself to do more than skim the second half of the article but I saw no actual evidence to support his thesis of automation being farther away than expected (i.e., ten years). I only saw evidence to suggest I shouldn't bank on the auto-makers to get there first.