The Disengagement Reports for the period December 2017 to November 2018 for all entities operating under a license testing autonomous vehicles on public roads in California is out. The California DMV has published the full list on their website.

In total 48 companies were required to report, and 28 companies, that were actively testing in public, operated 467 vehicles on public roads in California. In total the companies report 496 vehicles, with some companies mentioning no vehicles, although they are known to test on private roads. Many of the companies also operate more test cars in other states and countries.

Miles per Disengagement 2018

In total all companies drove in California during that period 2,036,296 miles (3,258,074 kilometers) in autonomous mode and encountered 143,720 disengagements (the moment the system hands back control to a safety driver or when the safety driver interferes).

Here is the table with the data sorted by Miles per Disengagement.

2018 Disengagements per 1000 miles Miles per Disengagement Disengagements per 1000 Kilometers Kilometers per Disengagement Vehicles Waymo 0.09 11,154.3 0.06 17,846.8 111 GM Cruise 0.19 5,204.9 0.12 8,327.8 162 Zoox 0.52 1,922.8 0.33 3,076.4 10 Nuro 0.97 1,028.3 0.61 1,645.3 13 Pony.AI 0.98 1,022.3 0.61 1,635.6 6 Nissan 4.75 210.5 2.97 336.8 4 Baidu 4.86 205.6 3.04 329.0 4 AIMotive 4.96 201.6 3.10 322.6 2 AutoX 5.24 190.8 3.27 305.3 6 Roadstar.AI 5.70 175.3 3.56 280.5 2 WeRide/JingChi 5.76 173.5 3.60 277.6 5 Aurora 10.01 99.9 6.26 159.8 5 Drive.ai 11.91 83.9 7.45 134.3 13 PlusAI 18.40 54.4 11.50 87.0 2 Nullmax 22.40 44.6 14.00 71.4 1 Phantom AI 48.20 20.7 30.13 33.2 1 NVIDIA 49.73 20.1 31.08 32.2 7 SF Motors 90.56 11.0 56.60 17.7 1 Telenav 166.67 6.0 104.17 9.6 1 BMW 219.51 4.6 137.20 7.3 5 CarOne/Udelv 260.27 3.8 162.67 6.1 3 Toyota 393.70 2.5 246.06 4.1 3 Qualcomm 416.63 2.4 260.39 3.8 2 Honda 458.33 2.2 286.46 3.5 1 Mercedes Benz 682.52 1.5 426.58 2.3 4 SAIC 829.61 1.2 518.51 1.9 2 Apple 871.65 1.1 544.78 1.8 62 Uber 2608.46 0.4 1630.29 0.6 29

As can be seen, the clear leader is Waymo, which more than doubled the distance until the car needs to disengage (see Disengagement Report from 2017). The first five companies including Waymo, GM Cruise, Zoox, Nuro and Pony.AI reach over 1,000 miles before a disengagement happens. The distance of the sixth-placed company – Nissan with disengagements every 210 miles – are almost worlds apart.

It’s noticeable that for almost all of the total disengagements reported Apple and Uber are accountable with 69,510 and 70,165 of the 143,720 total disengagements respectively (see next list). Either their technologies are that far behind or they don’t give sh*t.

And here a raw list:

2018 Vehicles Disengagements Miles Kilometer AIMotive 2 17 3,428.00 5,485 AiPod 1 – 31.50 50 Apple 62 69,510 79,745.00 127,592 Aurora 5 329 32,858.00 52,573 AutoX 6 119 22,710.00 36,336 Baidu 4 88 18,093.00 28,949 BMW 5 9 41.00 66 Bosch 1 – – – CarOne/Udelv 3 57 219.00 350 Changan 1 – – – Continental 0 – – – CYNGN 0 – – – Delphi/Aptiv 13 – 287.00 459 Drive.ai 13 55 4,616.69 7,387 Faraday Future 0 – – – Ford 0 – – – GM Cruise 162 86 447,621.00 716,194 Honda 1 77 168.00 269 Lyft 0 – – – Mercedes Benz 4 1,194 1,749.39 2,799 Navya 0 – – – NIO 0 – – – Nissan 4 26 5,473.00 8,757 Nullmax 1 68 3,036.00 4,858 Nuro 13 24 24,680.00 39,488 NVIDIA 7 206 4,142.00 6,627 Phantom AI 1 200 4,149.00 6,638 PlusAI 2 199 10,816.00 17,306 Pony.AI 6 16 16,356.00 26,170 Qualcomm 2 100 240.02 384 Renovo.auto 0 – – – Roadstar.AI 2 43 7,539.00 12,062 SAIC 2 526 634.03 1,014 Samsung 2 – – – SF Motors 1 232 2,561.80 4,099 Subaru 6 – – – Telenav 1 5 30.00 48 Tesla 0 – – – Toyota 3 150 381.00 610 TuSimple 2 – – – Udacity 1 – – – Valeo 2 – – – VW 0 – – – Voyage 0 – – – Uber 29 70,165 26,899.00 43,038 Waymo 111 114 1,271,587.00 2,034,539 WeRide/Jingchi 5 89 15,440.80 24,705 Zoox 10 16 30,764.00 49,222 Total 496 143,720 2,036,296 3,258,074

Quite a number of companies reported no public testing of autonomous vehicles for the period between December 2017 and November 2018, most prominently Tesla,

Some companies report their disengagement rates, although they are not required. Embark truck reported disengagements every 1,392 miles (2,227 kilometers).

Also see as a reference the Disengagement Report 2017.

This article was also published in German.