Anthony Levandowski on self-driving in 2022: The only metric is safety
In this October 2022 Bloomberg Quicktake report, we hear from one of the most controversial men in self-driving: Anthony Levandowski.
It covers Levandowski’s history with Google and Uber, trade secrets, being pardoned by Donald Trump, and his new role as co-founder and CEO of autonomous vehicle company, Pronto.
Self-driving safety
“Self-driving is defined as the occupant is not responsible for the movement of the vehicle,” he says. “I’m a firm believer in that. I think it’s gonna be transformational. It’s a trillion dollar a year business that everybody’s chasing.
“The only metric that determines when an autonomous vehicle is ready is safety. It doesn’t matter how much they cost. It doesn’t matter how bulky they are, how ugly they are. The only metric is safety. Are they safer than a person?”
Tantalisingly, the top half of the Pronto.ai homepage, “Offroad”, has an “Enter” button, while the bottom half, “Onroad”, says “Coming Soon”.
Way back in 2019, in the early days of Cars of the Future, we covered a timelapse video posted by Pronto.ai showing a car travelling almost entirely self-driving from San Francisco to New York.
Set to poetry by Charles Bukowski, it was subject to much scrutiny and caused quite a stir at the time. We’ve come a long way in three years.
