Driverless Cars Tap the Brakes After Years of Hype

"What was underappreciated by the industry is how long and how difficult it would be to industrialize the technology," said Karl Iagnemma, president of Aptiv's autonomous mobility. "Industrywide that recognition has dawned." The hype that has consumed the nascent driverless-car industry over the past few years has moved into a new period of cautious optimism following the fatal crash of an Uber Technologies Inc. test autonomous vehicle last year and separate crashes involving Tesla Inc.'s driver-assistance system. At both the CES tech show here last week and this week's Detroit auto show, straight talk about robot-vehicle safety and scaled-back expectations replaced past years' boastful claims of fully driverless cars flooding cities. The immediate future of autonomous vehicles is more subdued: plodding shuttles that drive around the block and cars that travel in confined, well-practiced routes with not one but two safety operators inside.