I’m going to say something you wouldn’t expect from the CEO of a car company: America’s roads are a warzone. Over 40,000 traffic fatalities in 2021. Millions of car accidents per year. Our streets and highways are dangerous, and it’s clear that the current system isn’t working. Years of preventable tragedies inspired me to start this company, and I’m proud to say that our self-driving cars will someday save countless lives. But, and I want to be upfront about this, they will kill some of you first.
We all think we’re above-average drivers, but let’s face it: humans make mistakes. We get tired. We get angry. We drink. Combine any of those with an automobile, and you’ve got a recipe for tragedy. Our autonomous vehicles don’t make human mistakes. Instead, they make errors that only a machine could make, like confusing a cyclist for an open roadway, or mixing up a pedestrian for an open roadway, or making a small oopsie and thinking that playing children are an open roadway. Nobody’s perfect.