Waymo has been saying ‘self-government’ for so long.
The Google sister company says it uses the term “self-driving cars” to describe its fleet of autonomous vehicles. And it subtly points to Elon Musk’s Tesla as the reason.
Waymo says he is committed to “using more purposeful language” in marketing, educational and promotional materials. This means that the company will no longer refer to its vehicles as “self-driving”, says Waymo. For example, the company is changing the name of its three-year-old public education campaign from ‘Let’s Talk Self-Driving’ to ‘Let’s Talk Autonomous Driving.’
“It may seem like a small change, but it’s an important one, because precision in language is important and can save lives,” the company wrote in a blog post published on January 5. “We hope that consistency will help to distinguish the fully autonomous technology that Waymo is developing from driver assistance technologies (sometimes incorrectly referred to as ‘self-management’ technologies) that require the supervision of licensed human drivers for safe operation.”
The references to driver assistance technologies appear to be a chance at Tesla, which last year activated a software update in some of its cars called ‘Full Self Driving’. The software, which enables drivers to use many of Autopilot’s advanced driver assistance features in local, non-highway streets, is still technically in beta. But an unknown number of whitelisted drivers received it and actively tested it on public roads – often filming and uploading the tests on YouTube.
Tesla said full self-driving should only be used by observant drivers with both hands on the wheel. But the feature is designed to help a driver, and it’s not infallible: there were several notable incidents in which some drivers involved Autopilot, crashed, and died.
Waymo never mentions Tesla by name in the blog post. But the Alphabet company is clearly motivated by Musk’s controversial decision to use the term ‘Full Self Driving’ to decide to tighten its own language policy. A key paragraph in the post reads (emphasize ours):
It is more than just a branding or linguistic exercise. Unfortunately, we see that some car manufacturers use the term “self-driving” in an inaccurate way, which gives consumers and the general public a misconception about the capabilities of driver assistance (not fully autonomous) technology. That wrong impression can lead to someone unknowingly taking risks (such as taking their hands off the steering wheel) that could endanger not only their own safety but also the safety of people around them. The merging of standard terminology will not only prevent misunderstandings and confusion, but also save lives.
Increasingly urgent calls have been made to standardize the language used to describe autonomous management. Ford has recently come in favor of standardized visual cues that autonomous vehicles can use to communicate intentions to pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers. Meanwhile, critics continue to define the five levels of automation as per the Association of Motor Engineers, the global standard for self-driving, because they are too broad and potentially dangerous. Most experts agree: we need a better, more uniform way of talking about self-driving cars.
Tesla, in particular, is considered by most experts to be abusing the lack of a common language around autonomous vehicles to overheat its products. Musk recently called Waymo’s approach to autonomous management “impressive, but a very specialized solution.” But there is a bigger gap between what Tesla claims it can do and how it actually performs. Musk claims that Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ driver assistance feature is capable of driving zero interventions, but within hours of release, videos can turned up of Tesla customers swinging to avoid parked cars and other nearby fog.
Years ago, Waymo considered developing an advanced driver system like Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” version of Autopilot, but eventually decided against it because he became “concerned” about the negative impact on the driver. Drivers will stick out or fall asleep at the wheel.
The driver assistance experiment helped bolster Waymo’s mission: fully autonomous or bust. To that end, Waymo recently began offering rides with its completely driverless vehicles to the general public in Arizona.