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- Uber CEO said driving machines should be held to higher safety standards compared to human drivers.
- Khosrowshahi predicts all cars will be autonomous in over 20 years, which would reduce car ownership.
- Many companies with autonomous driving technologies are facing increasing scrutiny over safety.
The skill of driving will someday look a lot "like horseback riding," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi predicts.
In a conversation with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi discussed autonomous driving safety and his vision for the future of car ownership.
Axel Springer is Business Insider's parent company.
When asked by Döpfner to make a big bet, Khosrowshahi said he sees all cars being autonomous in "20 plus years." Khosrowshahi said he expects this will lead to a decline in private car ownership and an increase in autonomous safety metrics, in part because there is less room for machines to make errors compared to humans.
"Humans are fallible, and I think there's much less permissiveness for machines to make those kinds of mistakes, especially if those mistakes lead to fatality," Khosrowshahi said on Döpfner's "MD MEETS" podcast. He was responding to a question about why autonomous driving accidents tend to be newsworthy.
"There's no doubt that humans will be less safe than robots as this technology matures — no doubt whatsoever," Khosrowshahi said. "So, should we allow humans to drive in the open road? I think it is a real question that societies are gonna ask themselves."
Khosrowshahi's comments come as companies have been releasing robotaxis or autonomous software for personal vehicles.
Tesla, for instance, unveiled a supervised version of Tesla Robotaxi in Austin and the Bay Area. The company also has Full Self-Driving (Supervised) for Tesla owners. FSD has not been without its issues. Tesla was ordered to pay over $242 million in damages to plaintiffs after a Florida jury decided that its Autopilot technology is partially responsible for a crash that killed a 22-year-old woman.
Waymo has autonomous vehicles across multiple cities, but has also been cautious in its approach to expansion and scaling. In a recent fireside chat event at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said that the company "pulls back all the time" when it comes to robotaxi deployment.
Uber is partnering with Waymo to manage the Alphabet-owned company's autonomous vehicle fleet in Austin, bringing fully driverless rides into Uber's app for the first time.
Tesla and Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
