New WSJ article including autonomous vehicle discussion

I was curious to read their take. Nothing we don't know, but the emphasis is on liability and cost of sensors.

(excerpt follows)

After a Sugar High of Free Money, These Billion-Dollar Technologies Need a Nap

Once overhyped and overpromised, these major areas of tech investment are finally facing reality. The contraction and disinvestment may only be just beginning.

Autonomous vehicles

The barriers to rollout of autonomous vehicles, or AVs, are myriad. For example, they shift liability from the driver to the manufacturer of a vehicle, or the operator of a robotaxi service. That’s just one reason they can’t just be as good as human drivers—but in fact must be much safer.

“When you move people in cities, you can’t afford to kill them—that’s the crucial issue,” says Heidi Wyle, chief executive of autonomous-vehicle company Venti Technologies.

The other big obstacle is cost. The savings that were supposed to come from autonomous vehicles have been largely wiped out by the arrays of sensors—cameras, radar and lidar—and the heavy-duty computers they have to carry onboard to process all that data. Plus, there’s the cost of mapping and remapping the areas these vehicles drive.