2021 California DMV disengagement report
Most cited reasons for disengagements
I think a mixed quantitative/qualitative analysis of the reasons for disengagement yields better insights than the miles between disengagements. As this Forbes article writes, “how many miles each team is driving between disengagements has not been that useful because there are too many variations in what a team needs to classify as a disengagement. Safety drivers are told to disengage if they have any concern that there might be a safety risk, and often they do so when it turns out there wasn’t really a problem.”
I spent a few hours going through all the reasons and cleaned up and categorized the data. Summary of my findings: Motion planning is the most cited reason, Waymo in particular encrypt their reasons and AutoX by far has the most straight forward descriptions. I did weigh by the number of miles driven.
Other interesting numbers and news that came from this report:
- A total of 1,175 autonomous vehicles had been in operation in California during the period. Waymo had the most vehicles in operation with 693, followed by Cruise with 138.
