GoKawiilIn February, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) sent letters to seven U.S. companies working on autonomous vehicle technology with a list of questions. He especially wanted to know how often these companies’ vehicles — operated by Aurora, May Mobility, Motional, Nuro, Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox — rely on input from remote staff. They all refused to say, according to the results of Markey’s investigation, which were released Tuesday.
The information published by Markey’s office is the latest example of how hesitant autonomous vehicle companies are to share details about how their operations truly work — despite the fact that they are all experimenting with this technology on public roads.
“This report has revealed a stunning lack of transparency from the AV companies around their use of [remote assistance operators] to help guide their AVs. The investigation exposed a patchwork of safety practices across the industry, with significant variation in operator qualifications, response times, and overseas staffing, all without any federal standards governing these operations,” Markey’s office wrote in its report.
Markey said Tuesday that he is calling on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to investigate these companies’ use of remote assistance workers, and that he is “working on legislation to impose strict guardrails on AV companies’ use of remote operators.”
TechCrunch has reached out to each company named. Waymo declined to comment. The other six did not immediately respond.
Markey launched his investigation in February after a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee was held on the future of self-driving cars. During the hearing, Waymo’s chief safety officer Mauricio Peña spoke about how the company’s vehicles sometimes need guidance from “remote assistance” staff when they get stuck in tricky or unexpected scenarios. Peña also revealed that about half of Waymo’s remote assistance staff is based in the Philippines.
Autonomous vehicle companies have spoken about these kinds of remote assistance operations in fits and starts over the years. But those conversations were often theoretical, as the technology was still speculative or deep in the testing phase.
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