Fatal Uber crash slows self-driving industry

The car industry is reassessing the road ahead following a fatal crash
earlier this month.

A self-driving Uber vehicle killed a woman in the US state of Arizona
- the first time an autonomous vehicle has been involved in a fatal
car crash.

So where now for the driverless technology?

Nick Harper reports from New York Auto Show.

IN: "Seeing the future..."
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TAKE VO
Seeing the future at the New York Auto Show... Sensors and cameras are
navigating the road ahead in this new partnership between Jaguar and
Waymo.
They plan to have driverless taxis on the roads for testing by the end
of this year - and 20,000 of them by 2020.
Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, has clocked a total
of 5 million miles on public road testing so far.
Hanno Kirner is the Executive Director of Corporate and Strategy for
Jaguar Land Rover.

SOT - Hanno Kirner, Jaguar Land Rover, Executive Director of Corporate
and Strategy: "The best way is always to convince through facts and
the fact is 94% of accidents happen because of human error. So by
reducing the likelihood of human error obviously we are increasing
safety. We also believe that technology, if it works can help us with
that."

TAKE VO
Facts and figures are one thing, but consumer sentiment - the way
people actually feel about the technology - is another. And there may
now be a rather significant roadblock standing in the way of
convincing people to trust the tech.
TAKE VO
The Uber crash this month that killed a female pedestrian, also hurt
consumer confidence. Here's Jennifer Vuong from Automotive News.

SOT - Jennifer Vuong, Automotive News: "It is kind of a wake up call
for the industry. // I do think that consumers will look at this and
be a little hesitant about self-driving technology. Certainly it has
affected the industry. We're seeing some tech companies, supplies,
manufactures maybe slow down on their development or testing at least
of the autonomous vehicle tech."

TAKE VO
The timeliness of the issue evidenced by this year's special Traffic
Safety Symposium, to assess and address the issue of machines behind
the wheel.
The President for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Cathy Chase,
gave the keynote speech at the symposium.

SOT - Cathy Chase, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, President:
"We support autonomous vehicles, we just want to make sure that human
error is not replaced by computer error. Two thirds of the public are
skeptical about sharing the roads with driverless cars. So we really
need to make sure they get the confidence they need to be able to rely
on on this technology which has such potential and promise to save
lives."

TAKE VO
Despite the continued US market dominance of SUVs and trucks, the
industry is clearing moving in one direction.
Some twenty companies are racing to make self-driving cars roadworthy.
Among them, Ford already has vehicles on the streets of Michigan and
Florida – testing pizza delivery.
BMW aims to unveil self-driving cars in China in 2021.
While the Chinese government has just approved Baidu's testing of
driverless cars in Beijing.
Testing and safety are now paramount to overcome concerns that it's
not quite time to remove the brains from behind the wheel.
SOC

ENDS