ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - January 2023 - 2

Editorial
As Argo taps out, the AV industry resets
I can't get the Rolling Stones'
lamenting yet confident lyrics to " Time
Is on My Side, " out of my head when
thinking about once-promising Argo
AI folding in November (the announcement
came just after this magazine's
previous issue went to press). In the
end, time wasn't on Argo's side.
Some say that Argo is the high-profile
canary in the coal mine that proves
SAE Level 4 driving, at least for personal
vehicles, is a fool's pursuit. Others claim
Argo's demise merely demonstrates
that AV-industry consolidation was, and
remains, inevitable.
I spoke with Edward Straub,
director of SAE International's Office of
Automation who maintains that from
the start, there's been " misalignment "
between the expectations for automated
driving and the realities of what's
possible and probable. " Driving is a social
endeavor. It's not just about solving an
engineering problem, " he said. Factor in
the hype that came with the need to raise
immense amounts of capital (some $75
billion has been invested in AV development,
reported Bloomberg) and you get
a recipe bound to include a lot of failure.
Despite what investors and the
public were told, " The use case was
never going to be: Get in, press a
button, take me anywhere, " Straub
asserted. " There were always going to
be constraints. "
Expect the industry's level-set to
be all over the map. As you'll read in our
piece on page 16, analysts don't see any
magic bullets. A robust business case
might be many years away.
The attention and the investment
already are shifting to commercial-vehicle
business models. GM's Cruise and
Alphabet's Waymo have ratcheted-up
their " still in the game " profiles. Cruise
revealed plans to expand its (truly)
driverless taxi service to Austin and
Phoenix by the end of 2022 and CEO
Kyle Vogt vowed the company would
surpass $1 billion in revenue by 2025.
Not to be forgotten is Motional, the
AV-development joint-venture between
Hyundai and Aptiv: Uber and Lyft said
they intend to bring Hyundai-based
robotaxis to a number of cities in 2023.
One factor seems clear: the automakers
are out. Ford CEO Jim Farley
said it plainly: let others shoulder the
burden of developing automation. This
is how it's played out for decades in the
OEM-supplier relationship: Automakers
increasingly become technology integrators,
final-assemblers and marketers
of the end product.
If Level 4 automation is to succeed,
it will be in the same crucible as
most other automotive technologies.
Value must overcome added cost.
Automation's value case has yet to be
proven. But that's not to say it won't.
SAE's Straub said the industry needs
to focus on a clear description of " operating
domains and use cases. " It also
needs an element of standardization to
commonize types of automated vehicles,
he noted. A level of abstraction the entire
industry can rally around, to say, " Look,
these are the criteria that need to be met
to get out there [in the market]. "
Time is on nobody's side in the AV
world. Argo couldn't outpace its cash
burn. Others will meet similar fate. A
refocus to commercial applications
and operating domains seems to be
the logical move.
Bill Visnic, Editorial Director
After months of planning, we've
updated this magazine's title to ADAS
& Autonomous Vehicle Engineering
to better reflect the industry's evolving
development directions. - BV
EDITORIAL
Bill Visnic
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2 January 2023
ADAS & AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE ENGINEERING
ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - January 2023

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