All Quotes

# autonomous-vehicles — 29 quotes

AUTONOMOUS-VEHICLES

“

The safest car on the road is the one with nobody inside. You can't injure a passenger if there is no passenger.

autonomous-vehiclesinnovation— Dave Ferguson, Nuro co-founder, TED Talk 2020
“

We are going to put a driverless car on every road in America. That is not a goal — that is an inevitability.

“

The DARPA Grand Challenge proved autonomous driving was possible. Google proved it could work in cities. Waymo is proving it can be a business.

“

Self-driving cars are not about technology. They are about saving the 40,000 lives lost on American roads every year. Everything else is a footnote.

“

We started this project at Google in 2009 because we believed autonomous driving could be solved. Fifteen years later, we are the only ones actually doing it at scale.

“

GM gave us $10 billion and told us to solve autonomous driving. We got close. Close is not enough.

“

The Origin was designed to be the first purpose-built autonomous vehicle — no steering wheel, no pedals, no compromise. The future just came a little later than we planned.

“

I helped build the technology at Google that became Waymo. Then I left to bet on trucks, because highways are simpler and trucking is an $800 billion market.

“

We merged with Uber ATG because combining the best teams gives you the best chance. Self-driving is too hard for any one company to solve alone.

“

I have been working on self-driving cars since 2004. This is not a fad for me. This is my life's work.

“

Autonomous vehicles need maps that update in real-time. That's a very different problem than showing you a pizza place.

“

We had the money. We had the talent. We had two of the biggest automakers in the world. What we didn't have was enough time.

“

The technology is not the hard part. The hard part is making the technology work in every situation a human driver would encounter.

“

Self-driving cars are further away than any of us want to admit.

“

Profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are still a long way off. We're being honest about that.

“

The trucking industry is short 80,000 drivers. Autonomous trucks aren't replacing drivers. They're filling jobs nobody wants.

“

Highways are more predictable than city streets. That's why autonomous trucking will be solved before robotaxis.

“

An autonomous truck can drive 20 hours a day. A human driver is legally limited to 11. The math is not complicated.

“

We're not building a demo. We're hauling real freight for real customers on real highways in Texas.

“

The defense contract isn't a side project. Military applications push our technology harder and faster than commercial ever could.

“

Everyone wants to solve the hardest problem in autonomy. We chose to solve the most profitable one.

“

Walmart doesn't do pilots for fun. When they put autonomous trucks on daily routes, it means the technology works.

“

We removed the safety driver in 2022. Fully autonomous trucks on public roads delivering for Walmart. No one in the cab.

“

Fixed routes are our unfair advantage. Our trucks drive the same roads every day. The more they drive, the better they get.

“

We spent 15 years developing the technology before anyone cared. Then suddenly everyone cared all at once.

“

Tesla dropped us in 2016. They said they'd build it themselves. We're in 170 million cars. They're in about 5 million.

“

Self-driving is a marathon, not a sprint. We've been running since 1999. Most of our competitors started in 2016.

“

The question isn't whether autonomous driving will happen. It's whether it'll happen fast enough to justify the billions being spent right now.

“

LiDAR is the only sensor that gives you a true 3D understanding of the world. Cameras can see. LiDAR can measure. That difference saves lives.