Watch Drive.ai’s self-driving car drive through the dark, rainy streets of Mountain View, California, flawlessly handling a busy four-way stop sign, a car that cuts it off, and a broken red light
Last week we saw GM’s Cruise Automation self-driving car flawlessly conquer the busy streets of San Francisco, now this week startup Drive.ai is looking to one-up the competition.
Showing off its autonomous vehicle technology for the first time, Drive.ai released a video of its test vehicle driving through the rainy streets of Mountain View, Calif. — at night.
Inclement weather and nighttime driving are challenging for self-driving cars due to reduced visibility for the car’s sensors, of course, which makes Drive.ai’s performance that much more impressive.
Drive.ai says no human intervention was needed during this drive, which looks completely autonomous in the video above. It also points out that “these are conditions drivers encounter every single day. Any successful self-driving technology will need to address countless unpredictable situations and a wide range of driving conditions, yet few are able to today.”
Here are some of the more notable moments of the video above that shows Drive.ai’s self-driving technology hard at work.
0:30 – Narrow street with parked cars and glare from oncoming traffic
1:00 – Busy 4-way stop sign and a car cuts in front of the Drive.ai car
1:50 – Broken red light at intersection
2:35 – Reflections from the wet ground
Drive.ai launched in August 2016 to build artificial intelligence for self-driving vehicles. Drive.ai uses deep learning and neural network to teach self-driving cars how to identify and detect objects, decision-making and communication with other drivers and passengers.
Again, while this video is quite impressive, Drive.ai has a long way to go to catch up to Waymo, which in 2016 averaged just 0.2 disengagements for every 1,000 autonomous miles.
