The California Department of Motor Vehicles has released its annual report on autonomous vehicle technology, and Tesla Inc (Nasdaq: TSLA) is nowhere to be found. According to the report, General Motors Co. ( GM) and Alphabet ( GOOG, GOOGL) AVs logged nearly half a million miles on California public roads in 2017, while Tesla AVs failed log a single mile.
Alphabet subsidiary Waymo appears to be leading the AV race in terms of driving miles and valuable data collection. California reported that Waymo vehicles traveled 352,545 miles on California roads last year and have now accumulated nearly 1 million total miles in the past two years. The DMV reported only 63 instances in which Waymo’s human drivers needed to disengage autonomous control in 2017.
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GM vehicles traveled a total of 131,676 miles on California roads this year after traveling less than 10,000 total miles in 2016. General Motors reported a total of 105 disengagements and 22 accidents on the year.
Conspicuous by its absence among the top AV companies was Tesla, which logged zero autonomous miles on California public roads in 2017. The company says it is performing off-road simulations, testing AVs in locations outside of California and collecting data from customer-owned vehicles that are not fully autonomous.
Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made headlines this week after his tunnel drilling company The Boring Company sold $10 million in flamethrowers in four days.
Earlier this month, Navigant Research listed Tesla last among 19 auto companies developing AV technology. Not surprisingly, Navigant named GM and Waymo as the current leaders of the AV technology race.
“The autopilot system on current products has stagnated and, in many respects, regressed since it was first launched in late 2015,” Navigant says of Tesla’s technology. “More than one year after launching V2, Autopilot still lacks some of the functionality of the original, and there are many anecdotal reports from owners of unpredictable behavior.”
Tesla’s previous version of Autopilot was powered by technology from Intel Corp. ( INTC) subsidiary Mobileye, but Tesla cut ties with Mobileye in 2016.
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Other auto experts also say Tesla’s Autopilot technology has taken a step backward. In September, Bernstein analyst Max Warburton said the new Autopilot 2.0 has less functionality than the original Mobileye version had.
“While Tesla has many advantages, we believe its self-driving capabilities are exaggerated,” Warburton said.
Bernstein has a “market perform” rating and $265 target for TSLA stock.
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Tesla Inc (TSLA) Failed to Log a Driverless Mile in California in 2017 originally appeared on usnews.com
