It is not the first time that a traffic accident has occurred in a driverless vehicle. However, this time, Xiaoma Zhixing recalled some L4 automatic driving systems, which is the first case in the world.
March 7-13, during the Vehicle Safety Recall Week organized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), NHTSA said on March 8 that after the October crash in California, Pony Agreed to recall part of the L4 self-driving system, involving three cars. According to Reuters, this is also the first time NHTSA has recalled the autonomous driving system.
Screenshot from a reuters report
NHTSA Deputy Commissioner Steven M. Cliff said in a statement that the first recall of the self-driving system shows that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is prioritizing safety issues while ensuring that automakers and developers introduce the latest technology.
The reason behind the recall
According to the official website of the California Motor Vehicle Administration (hereinafter referred to as DMV), as of March 4, 2022, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has received 426 reports of driverless vehicle collisions.
So, why is it that Xiaoma Zhixing was taken out this time?
This is not unrelated to the fact that the self-driving test vehicle of Xiaoma Zhixing was in a fully driverless state at that time.
At present, California has three types of autonomous driving test licenses: autonomous driving road test permits with safety officers, all unmanned test licenses without safety officers, and commercial deployment licenses.
In May 2021, Pony Chi Heng received a Type II license from California regulators. It is also the eighth company to be licensed after Apollo, AutoX, Cruise, Nuro, Waymo, WeRide and Zoox.
Under permits, Pony Chi Heng will be able to test fully driverless cars on designated streets in Fremont, Milpitas and Irvine. But these vehicles need to travel on the road in clear weather and with little rainfall, with a speed limit of no more than 45 miles per hour.
On October 28, an autonomous driving test vehicle based on the modern electric model Kona was involved in an accident in Fremont. At the time, driverless cars were using autonomous driving mode to switch lanes. However, due to software problems, the vehicle drove on the middle barrier of the road, hit a road sign on the barrier, and the front of the vehicle was slightly damaged.
On the second day of the accident, Xiaoma Zhixing reported to the relevant departments, including the DMV's autonomous driving management department, NHTSA and other relevant departments.
Although no other vehicles were involved in the accident, no one was injured. But this crash also caused DMV to suspend the driverless test license of Pony Zhixing, and now on the DMV official website, the number of companies in the Driverless Testing license list has changed from 8 to 7, and Pony Zhixing is no longer on the list.
In addition, NHTSA also investigated. In an official report to NHTSA, Pony Zhixing said that a safety flaw in a version of its automatic driving system software (ADS) caused the collision, and only three Xiaoma Zhixing autonomous vehicles were affected by the software problem and solved the system problem within one day after the collision.
But NHTSA still believes in its response that the software has security flaws and asks Pony Zhixing to carry out a recall.
The premise of commercialization of autonomous driving technology is safety
Just before the recall, Xiaoma Zhixing had just completed the first delivery of the D round of financing, with a post-investment valuation of $8.5 billion. In the official draft of the financing, Xiaoma Zhixing said that the purpose of this round of financing funds is to promote the commercialization process and mass production of autonomous driving in the field of passenger cars and commercial vehicles.
Obviously, before the large-scale commercialization landed, the US regulatory authorities paid more and more attention to the safety of autonomous driving.
For a long time, for high-level autonomous driving technology, governments have adopted the approach of allowing conditional use under "exempt" conditions or "sandbox" management. However, the NHTSA's first recall of the automatic driving system may be seen as another signal that governments are becoming more stringent in regulating the safety of autonomous driving.
Last August, NHTSA launched a formal investigation into Tesla's Autopilot system, which has "difficulty identifying emergency vehicles parked on the side of the road." As soon as the news came out, Tesla's stock price fell in response, and the market value evaporated by about $30.7 billion. In February, NHTSA again investigated the incident.
Subsequently, the German Federal Motor Transport Administration also reviewed the automatic lane change function in Tesla's autopilot system to determine whether the function can be used legally in the European market.
In fact, consumers are not without concerns about the safety of autonomous driving.
According to the timetable set by the mainland's "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", by 2035, highly autonomous vehicles will achieve large-scale applications.
If this is to be achieved, it is necessary to win the support of consumers. However, according to the survey data of the E-Car Research Institute, the attitude of major age groups to automatic driving is mainly worried. Among them, users in their 30s are worried about autonomous driving for 95%. In 2021, Chinese users' concerns about the safety of autonomous driving are highly focused on failures/system errors, accounting for 86.25%.
During the two sessions of the National People's Congress this year, a number of deputies and committee members made suggestions calling for accelerating the revision and implementation of relevant laws and regulations to lay a legal foundation for the large-scale commercial use of autonomous vehicles. Zhou Hongyi, founder and chairman of 360 Group, suggested that the reporting behavior of automobile safety vulnerabilities should be standardized and a situational awareness system for the intelligent and networked automotive industry with the safety brain as the core should be created, and a long-term mechanism for automobile safety supervision should be established.
brief summary
At present, on the eve of the mass production of autonomous driving, safety must be the precondition for driverless vehicles to take the road on a large scale. Just like building a building to lay the foundation, only when the foundation is stable, the building above can be high and not collapsed.
In the process of rapid development of autonomous driving technology, it is inevitable to encounter twists and turns. From the recall of part of the L4 automatic driving system from Xiaoma Zhixing, it can also be seen that in the process of technology development and landing, safety issues cannot be ignored. This case has also brought a warning to the industry, but at the same time, it has also given the outside world a more sober and rational understanding of unmanned vehicles or Robotaxi, do not over-mythologize and believe in the ability of autonomous driving technology, and maintain a reverence for new technologies.
The landing process of new technologies is a process of continuous trial and error and iteration, and strengthening monitoring is a long way to go, only in this way can we ensure that it truly achieves stable and rapid development. Just as fuel vehicles will be recalled every year, similar recalls may occur frequently in the future as regulations become stricter and under the big waves.
The recall of some L4 autonomous driving systems by Pony Zhixing is the first in the world, but it may not be the last. (This article was first published on Titanium Media App, author/Han Jingxian, editor/Zhang Min)
Resources:
https://www.nhtsa.gov/
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/testing-autonomous-vehicles-without-a-driver/
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/startup-ponyai-agrees-automated-driving-system-software-recall-2022-03-08/