Why Does Self-Driving Technology Always Seems Five Years Away?

A decade ago, industry stakeholders thought fully self-driving vehicles (SDVs) would become a reality in five years. It's 2021 already, and there are still no signs of autonomous vehicles at a scale many experts had anticipated. Five years ago, GM spent $581 million to acquire Cruise Automation. In 2017, GM chief Mary Barra wrote, "We expect to be the first high-volume auto manufacturer to build'fully-autonomous vehicles' in a mass-production assembly plant." At the time, GM president Daniel Ammann, said, "When you are working on the large-scale deployment of mission-critical safety systems, the mindset of'move fast and break things certainly does not cut it."