1/ I've been reflecting a bit on this. It strikes me that the state of robotic driving today is much like the state of electric vehicles back in the '90's. There were significant technology advances in key pieces of the puzzle. https://t.co/0xO1XrlPDQ

— CoverDrive (@CoverDrive12) March 20, 2020

2/ For the EV, the key piece back then was the development of the variable frequency 3-phase inverter. All of a sudden, EV technology was available and the race to the finish was on. Billions of dollars were invested. Rapidly, all of the pieces came together except one.

— CoverDrive (@CoverDrive12) March 20, 2020

3/ Thirty years later, that last piece is better, but still not good enough to allow widespread EV adoption. It continues only at a snail’s pace, urged along by regulatory truffles.

— CoverDrive (@CoverDrive12) March 20, 2020

4/ I see similarities in robotic driving technology. We've had huge improvements in object recognition and sensor technologies. And once again, it has spurred a race to the finish with billions of dollars being spent.

— CoverDrive (@CoverDrive12) March 20, 2020

5/ But one after the other, I’m seeing major players scaling back their expectations. Some players, like Starsky, will recognize that the necessary technology breakthrough is not imminent and will pull out of the race.

— CoverDrive (@CoverDrive12) March 20, 2020

6/ For those deep-pocket companies who remain, I expect incremental improvements over the years. It will be interesting to see where we end up 20 years from now.

— CoverDrive (@CoverDrive12) March 20, 2020