Exploration of the feasibility of steering wheelless cars based on Robotaxi operation data

Abstract

With the development of autonomous driving technology, higher-level autonomous driving is hopeful to be applied in vehicles, and drivers control of the car will also be replaced by intelligent algorithms. At the same time, a question has been raised as to whether the traditional steering wheel can be replaced when advanced autonomous driving becomes commonplace. To this end, a survey on steering wheelless cars was conducted to explore the feasibility of autonomous vehicles without the steering wheel. As a result, the operational data of Waymo and Apollo, two Robotaxi (a self-driving car operated by a ridesharing company) companies in the United States and China, is analyzed. The results show that at this stage, autonomous driving cannot fully control the car, and the driver still needs to take over the vehicle in complex situations. Of course, according to the data, Miles per Intervention (MPI) is gradually rising and is expected to reach a reasonable expectation, so steering wheelless cars still have a certain feasibility in the future.