The collapse of Argo AI, the consistent traffic problems created by Cruise's hesitant self-driving test vehicles in San Francisco and the unfulfilled promise from Elon Musk to turn Teslas into robotaxis illustrate the difficulties facing the autonomous highway.
Investors have poured $160 billion into the dream of autonomous transport over the last dozen years, according to McKinsey & Co., but except for a few test programs, it remains a distant goal.
The latest setback came last month, when Ford Motor Co. posted a third-quarter loss of $827 million, mainly attributed to the shuttering of Argo AI, a self-driving vehicle development company the automaker had invested in heavily.