Waymo logs in an average of over 9000 km without driver intervention from Dec 2016 to Nov 2017

The metric is one way to measure the reliability of any self-driving system, although regulators have not yet determined how safe autonomous vehicles must be before they are introduced in large numbers, a timeframe that could be a decade or more away. [caption id=“attachment_4051689” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Waymo. Reuters.[/caption] The latest disengagement report showed that Waymo vehicles, in tests conducted from December 2016 through November 2017, on average logged 5,596 miles (9,005 km) without Waymo’s safety drivers disengaging the system and retaking the wheel. Its next closest contender was Cruise, owned by General Motors, at 1,214 miles (1,954 km) on average between disengagements. Autonomous vehicles are still in the research and development stage and are being tested on public roads, especially in California where most companies competing in the space have tech hubs in Silicon Valley. California law requires that self-driving cars have a person in the driver’s seat who can take over control when needed. **Waymo** , for example, drove 352,545 miles (567,366 km) in the state during the period with only 63 disengagements. Cruise vehicles drove about a third less, at 127,516 miles (205,217 km), and had 105 disengagements. The third best performance came from **Nissan Motor** , which drove 5,007 miles (8,057 km) and had 24 disengagements, meaning that its vehicles had disengagements on average every 208 miles (335 km). The numbers fall off sharply after Nissan, with Baidu at an average rate of every 41 miles (66 km), chipmaker **Nvidia** at 4.6 miles (7.4 km) on average, and Mercedes, with disengagements every 1.3 miles (2.1 km) on average. Ford Motor, Honda Motor, BMW, Volkswagen AG and Tesla said they conducted no autonomous driving testing on California’s roads during the time period.