The CEO of Mobileye explains why self-driving cars can't be too cautious
- Acquired by Intel in 2017, Mobileye is developing software and hardware for self-driving cars, including computer chips and maps.
- Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua told Business Insider that autonomous vehicles (AVs) can't be too cautious.
- If AVs take too long to get to their destinations, people won't want to ride in them, Shashua said.
- To increase reliability, Mobileye is developing a self-driving system that can operate with only cameras and a system that needs only lidar and radar, then putting the two systems together.
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Since an Uber self-driving test vehicle killed a pedestrian in 2018, the autonomous-driving industry has taken a more cautious tone, emphasizing safety over deployment timelines.
But self-driving technology will always require trade-offs between speed, safety, and comfort. If an autonomous vehicle is too cautious, no one will want to use it, Amnon Shashua, CEO of the self-driving software and hardware company Mobileye, said in an interview with Business Insider.
"A customer is not going to take a ride to go from Point A to Point B knowing that it's going to take twice as long," he said, "even if there's a discount."
If you want to switch lanes in a city with dense, aggressive traffic, you can't always expect someone to let you in, Shashua said. You have to force your way in, without creating a collision; self-driving vehicles will have to learn how to do the same. To prepare for those kinds of challenges, Mobileye is testing its technology in an urban setting, Jerusalem, rather than a suburban one.
A self-driving system designed for and tested in a mild environment won't necessarily adapt to a more difficult one, Shashua said. Moving from easy to hard could require a substantial redesign of your technology.
"Complicated is not a smooth transition from simple," he said.
Acquired by Intel in 2017, Mobileye is developing software and hardware for self-driving cars, including computer chips and maps. The company's technology also powers advanced driver-assistance systems that are available today, like Nissan's ProPilot Assist, and safety features like automatic emergency-braking and forward collision-warning. Mobileye can use the revenue from its driver-assistance technology to fund the development of a fully-autonomous system.
Shashua believes it's important that autonomous-vehicle companies publicize the decision-making frameworks their vehicles will use, as doing so will make it easier to work with regulators. In 2017, Mobileye published a paper outlining the rules a vehicle driven by its technology would follow to avoid and respond to possible collisions.
"We told ourselves that if it's not transparent, and if it's not out there in an open way, we cannot engage with regulatory bodies," Shashua said.
A self-driving vehicle also needs sensors - like cameras, radar, and lidar (which emit pulses of light to detect and locate objects) - that allow it to understand its environment. Many autonomous-vehicle companies are pairing sensors so they can compensate for each other's weaknesses. Cameras, for example, can have trouble with shadows and bright lights, but lidar and radar sensors don't.
To Shashua, that isn't enough. Mobileye wants to create two separate sensor "streams" that can work without the other. That means Mobileye is developing a self-driving system that can operate reliably with only cameras, and another one that needs only lidar and radar, then putting the two together. If the company can pull that off, it will make the odds of a sensing mistake "infinitesimally low," Shashua said.
Mobileye plans to begin giving rides in self-driving cars in Tel Aviv this year, before expanding to the rest of Israel in 2023. During the next four years, the company also plans to test self-driving vehicles in China, Korea, and France.
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