What's the point of these new cars? The race to perfect autonomous vehicles is in full swing with Tesla and Xpeng vying for robotaxi dominance, but do we even need them? | Opinion

Autonomous vehicles are touted as the silver bullet to mobility yet anyone who has experienced even the best systems currently available should have doubts. 

I was reminded of one of the crucial shortcomings the other day in the midst of Sydney’s cut-and-thrust traffic on the M5 East motorway. Between Bexley and Campbelltown is where you’ll encounter some of the most hectic driving in this country. 

It’s part of my regular road test route and I use it mainly to evaluate each car’s driver assistance features such as adaptive cruise control and lane trace assist and, without fail, the systems are flummoxed … but not by lane markings or road quality. Rather, it is other drivers that wreak havoc on the assistance systems. 

The BMW iX3 I was driving has what’s regarded as a pretty excellent adaptive cruise control system with nearly Sydney driver-like following distance on the closest setting. Yet on the motorway I had three drivers in a row decide the gap left by the X3 was not for a margin of safety but fair-go real estate.

When using adaptive cruise, this pushes you further and further back in the queue often forcing those behind to brake, causing an eventual traffic jam and frayed tempers. This ability to capitalise on the gap left by adaptive cruise appears to have made other motorists less inclined to change lanes, too, further compounding the problem of grouping on motorways. 

This isn’t grossly unsafe – though a quick search will unearth myriad clips of Tesla’s ‘Autopilot’ and ‘Full Self Driving’ systems making unsafe decision – but driving serenely as people merge in front of you goes against almost every fibre in the human body. It’s just not fair! 

Even if every car on a section of motorway is using some version of autonomous driving, if there is any semblance of human control, issues are bound to crop up. 

Say someone sets their cruise to 102km/h and you are travelling at the posted 100km/h limit, they’ll want to get past you and will need to signal that in some way. That might lead to even stricter speed control – again, something most of us don’t see eye-to-eye on. 

And if travelling down a straight road in autonomous car only areas is where we’re going to end up, why not just catch the train? I, for one, enjoy driving because I’m largely in control of my own destiny. When I want to switch off on the way to work, it’s a train carriage on rails that provides the greatest relaxation. 

Car companies are divided on autonomy, too – not least fierce rivals Ford and GM. In 2022, Ford and Volkswagen jumped out, shutting down their investments in the autonomous company Argo, while GM doubled down with its Cruise division. 

Perhaps replacing the menial task of Uber and Taxi driving is where the strength of autonomous vehicles lies, though a quick session on YouTube will unearth Waymo taxis in the United States making some pretty questionable moves.  

China is expanding autonomous operation but when Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post went to investigate the service in Shanghai, the taxi took its sweet time and the operation didn’t appear to be particularly luxurious. 

Aside from retrofitting extra cameras and sensors to existing vehicles, two companies are at the forefront of AI-powered robotaxi development: Xpeng and Tesla. CEO Elon Musk has promised we’ll see the brand’s first prototype this year, but series production? That’s less of a sure bet. 

Analysts differ in their opinions of the technology’s value but most put Tesla’s autonomy and AI program as a more valuable asset than the physical cars or energy storage solutions. Musk also told stockholders to sell up if they didn’t believe in the technology.

Chinese carmaker Xpeng has promised production of self-driving robotaxis by 2026 with some electric cars in China already permitted to venture out of car parks of their own accord to find charging pylons in allocated areas, so it seems the technology is coming if us driving loving luddites like it or not. 

But even this talk of robotaxis misses the point because we have to ask who autonomous cars benefit and exactly what those benefits are. 

Elon has the added urgency to get the tech off the ground because his company is so heavily invested already and, without success, he won’t get such a handsome paycheck. 

The logical benefit is safety and this is a pretty clear, broad-reaching one. Remove the loose nut between the wheel and pedals and things are bound to get safer yet humans are extremely good at weighing up risk and reward. 

Making difficult decisions or adapting under pressure – swerving to avoid a child in the road with little regard for hitting a tree, for example – are what’s given us an evolutionary advantage. It’s impossible to write a line of code that acts to benefit the greatest number of people in situations like that. So autonomous cars are not necessarily safer for all. 

Others might cite increased productivity, allowing passengers to keep working on Robotaxi trips. It’s hard to see this as a win for broader society, though, don’t we all want more holidays?

What about removing a menial task from job listings? Sure, but again, Taxi and hire car driving is a time-old profession that combines customer service, quick thinking and navigation that has so-far eluded computers – not to mention the colourful conversations had along the way.

Cheaper transport is a possible benefit, yet a lot of experts can only see autonomous vehicles working in tandem with others, not regular human traffic. If you were to replace the whole carpark with driverless vehicles, that leaves someone looking for a safe vehicle for less than $10,000 out in the cold.

If self-driving cars can’t quickly prove they can safely interface with cars driven by humans and more vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, motorcycles and bicycles, our driverless future will remain a rich person’s pipe dream for the foreseeable future.