In a recent survey of the 7,500 self-driving companies located in the Bay Area, California, 80% of respondents report that their models are “above average” or higher, with 55% believing that their models are “the best in the industry.”

Alex Khosrowshahi, a source intimately familiar with self-driving car companies, says Uber ATG is the best. “Uber ATG has killed only one person,” he argues, “compared to the millions of lives that could be saved when we make transportation as reliable as running water.”

Alex Smith, an “AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES/AI/DEEP-LEARNING EXPERT” at Lyft according to LinkedIn, claps back, “We’ve given our new grads the highest salaries of any company, and yet we still run the most cost-efficient self-driving business that exists.” He noted that most of the cost savings came from having no lawsuits, cars on the road, or working technology.

Alex Carter, Waymo’s spokesperson responds, “Our miles per intervention (MPI) is 10K+ miles, with miles per critical intervention exceeding 100K miles.” When asked if these referred to their canonical right-turn-only routes in Arizona, Carter replied, “Our miles per intervention (MPI) is 10K+ miles, with miles per critical intervention exceeding 100K miles.”

Interestingly, in a different question asking about key performance metrics, no two companies reported the same top-level metric for success. Alex Teller from Nuro claims, “Well, this is a tough question because it changes so frequently. Our PMs are paid based on the number of dashboards they create, so the only constant KPI is the total number of metrics.”

Representatives for Drive.AI and Voyage declined to comment.

co authored by Athena Kan but i have no idea how medium works thx