The most enthusiastic have been promising for years the arrival of vehicles that can steer without humans and have spent billions on it.

But the technicians progressed less quickly than hoped.

Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet (the parent company of Google), has been offering paid driverless rides to the general public since 2020 in Phoenix, Arizona, but on very marked roads.

Cruise, a General Motors company, was the first to win permission in June to carry passengers for a fee aboard its robotaxis in San Francisco, a city with more complicated traffic, but only at night initially.

In Las Vegas, Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, has been offering autonomous journeys with Uber since December, but still for the moment with an operator in the vehicle, just in case.

A car from Motional, a joint venture between Aptiv and Hyundai, presented at CES in Las Vegas © Robyn BECK / AFP

“Any company that announces that it is removing drivers still present for safety reasons is a big step forward,” said Bryant Walker Smith, a legal expert in autonomous driving at Stanford University.

Several incidents with Cruise's vehicles, on a left turn for example, have been reported and the United States Highway Traffic Safety Agency (NHTSA) has opened an investigation.

But for several specialists interviewed by AFP, the software will gradually be refined.

Distant profitability

"The big question is rather how (these projects) can scale. How quickly can a company replicate this feat in a city like Los Angeles? Or Minneapolis where it often snows?"

forward Bryant Walker Smith.

Many car manufacturers are working on autonomous driving or, failing to achieve this in the short term, on tools such as speed regulation, lane change on the highway or parking assistance.

Ford, like Volkswagen, decided in October to end its stake in the autonomous driving company Argo AI, preferring to give priority to less ambitious technologies.

Elon Musk regularly promises that his Teslas will be fully self-driving soon, but his company further clarifies that its driver assistance tools, including the one dubbed “fully self-driving capability,” are designed “for use by an alert driver whose hands are on the wheel".

Developing an autonomous car, for a manufacturer or a carrier, represents "a huge cost without necessarily short-term profitability", notes Jordan Greene, co-founder of the company AEye, which has designed a laser sensor called Lidar allowing vehicles to perceive their environment.

The emergence of autonomous driving no longer depends so much on technological progress as on the financial interest of companies, according to him.

Car manufacturers, for example, have a lot to gain by marketing a platform of driving assistance tools that motorists can update regularly remotely, by paying.

The road transport sector, in need of drivers, also has an interest in developing autonomous driving solutions on the most frequent routes.

And "other markets may emerge," said Jordan Green.

AEye, present at CES like many companies manufacturing sensors, offers for example to use its Lidar for traffic management or safety on construction sites.

"Exaggerated Accidents"

Holon, brand of the Austrian equipment manufacturer Benteler, unveiled Wednesday at CES an autonomous and electric shuttle intended for public transport, designed without steering wheel or pedal and able to travel up to 60 km / h.

Production should start in 2025, initially in the United States.

For its director Marco Kollmeier, "the failures (of self-driving cars) are completely exaggerated", like the media attention given to any accident involving a Tesla.

"Autonomous driving isn't just about allowing a driver to fall asleep at the wheel," he says.

A shuttle like the one in Holon can "redefine public transportation" by offering rides on demand or on fixed routes.

Zoox, a subsidiary of Amazon, is presenting a similar vehicle at the show.

As for whether self-driving vehicles won't face resistance from the general public, Jordan Greene isn't too worried.

"It's a typical adoption curve," he says.

"When I was told I would pay to ride in a car with a stranger, I couldn't believe it. Now I only take Ubers."

© 2023 AFP