The self-driving auto industry is abandoning the term "autopilot" and leaving it to Tesla

Goodbye, Safe Streets Self-Driving Alliance; hello, Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association

The self-driving auto industry's top lobby group in Washington, D.C., is rebranding, abandoning the term "autonomous driving" in favor of a more direct name. The group was founded in 2016 by Waymo, Ford, Lyft, Uber and Volvo to lobby lawmakers to pass legislation that benefits its members. Since then, it has grown to include the country's top AV operators, including Cruise, Aurora, Argo AI, Motional, Nuro and Zoox.

This is the latest move in the AV industry to move away from the term "autonomous driving".

It's the latest move in the AV industry to move away from the term "road trip," which many observers interpret as acknowledging Tesla's impact on the public's perception of the technology.

Tesla sells a feature called "full self-driving," a beta version of an advanced driver assistance system that can control some of the car's features on local roads but still requires human supervision. Self-driving cars, by contrast, are cars that can run on public roads without any human intervention or supervision.

To be sure, the lobby group didn't mention Tesla in its announcement, but it did say its new name is more in line with its members' "commitment to precision and consistency when industry, policymakers, journalists, and the public talk about self-driving technology." The group continued.

The association recently called on all stakeholders to make a clear distinction between autonomous driving and driving assistance to increase consumer trust and understanding. AVIA advocates autonomous vehicles, which perform the entire driving task. Self-driving cars don't require human operators or even act as backup drivers; the people or packages in the car are just passengers or cargo.

A year ago, Waymo announced that it would stop using the term "self-driving cars" to describe its fleet in an effort to use "more deliberate language" in its marketing, education and promotional materials. The company cites "some automakers" who "use the term 'self-driving' in an inaccurate way," which can lead to confusion and can lead to crashes.

A few years ago, Waymo considered developing an advanced driver assistance system such as Tesla's "fully autonomous driving" version of Autopilot, but ultimately decided not to do so because it was "shocked" by the negative impact it had on drivers. Drivers doze off on the steering wheel.

There is a growing demand for standardization of language describing autonomous driving

The call to standardize the language describing autonomous driving is increasingly urgent. Ford has come out to support standardized visual cues that self-driving cars can use to convey intent to pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers.

At the same time, critics continue to lash out at the five levels of automation defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers, the global standard for autonomous driving, as being too broad and potentially dangerous. Most experts agree: We need a better, more unified way to talk about self-driving cars.

Federal regulators agreed. In a recent interview with The Verge, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg commented on any company that uses misleading language to describe driver assistance features.

Buttigieg said, "I kept saying this until I turned blue: Anything you can buy on the market today is driver assistance technology, not driving replacement technology." "I don't care what its name is. We need to make sure we're very clear about this – even if the company doesn't. "

At first, some in the avio industry were skeptical of Waymo's move. According to TechCrunch, there are concerns about what it means to give up the term "autopilot" to Tesla. Some car company CEOs oppose abandoning the term in favor of continuing to educate the public about the difference between their vehicles and those equipped with secondary driver assistance systems.

But now, lobbies, including nearly all AV operators in the U.S., are abandoning the term, and it seems that those concerns have now materialized. But what happens if Tesla decides to release a product called "fully autonomous"?

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