"$80 billion has been spent on self-driving cars with nothing to show for it."

Back on March 29 I promised, in the intro to "Place Your Bets: Predicting a Technology’s Commercial Success":

So far, autonomous vehicles look like a sinkhole for an estimated $80 billion in investment, more on that next week.... 

And promptly had reality intrude and forgot to do the "note to self" thing.

I then had a chance in April 5's "Level 5 Autonomous Vehicles Unlikely Before 2035" but without the aide-mémoire blissfully moved on to the next post in the queue, something about Amazon getting out of Seattle.

However....it has since been brought to my attention that TreeHugger did the post I aspired to,  but did it batter, backwards, and in heels (so to speak).

So, from TreeHugger:

$80 billion has been spent on self-driving cars with nothing to show for it. 
We are wasting too much time, energy and money on autonomous vehicles. We know what to do and it's not AVs.

According to Axios, global investors dumped $4.2 billion into companies working on self-driving cars (or autonomous vehicles, AVs) in the first 3 quarters of 2018.

The $4.2 billion figure doesn't include all the funds automakers are investing into developing their own new tech. A Brookings Institution report last year estimated that from August 2014 to June 2017, a total of nearly $80 billion was invested in the area by the auto industry and venture capitalists.

$80 billion. For what? According to Volkswagen, we are still a long way away from true autonomy, and that "driverless vehicles have limited appeal and high cost." From Reuters:

Autonomous cars require high-tech infrastructure, hugely expensive lidar and radar systems, as well as pricey deals with cloud computing and mapping providers, VW’s Thomas Sedran told Reuters on the sidelines of the Geneva motor show.

He compared full Level 5 autonomy to "a manned mission to mars."

You need latest-generation mobile infrastructure everywhere, as well as high-definition digital maps that are constantly updated. And you still need near-perfect road markings,” he explained. This will only be the case in very few cities. And even then, the technology will only work in ideal weather conditions. If there are large puddles on the road in heavy rain, that’s already a factor forcing a driver to intervene.

 
Sources of added energy consumption from Ford Fusion's autonomy system /University of Michigan/CC BY 2.0

AVs might also be serious electricity hogs. Peter Fairley writes in IEEE Spectrum that "autonomous driving systems give cars eco-driving skills. But their computers and sensors could consume enough electricity to negate this green dividend." Consumption of fuel is increased by the clunky aerodynamics of the sensors and running all the computers needed to munch the scenery.

For the small and medium-sized equipment packages, going autonomous required 2.8 to 4.0 percent more onboard power. This went primarily to power the computers and sensors, and secondarily to the extra 17-22 kilograms of mass the equipment contributed.

AVs are going to be really expensive for quite a while, too. According to Sedran of VW:...

...MORE

To top it off, I had completely missed that 2018 IEEE Spectrum article, "Exposing the Power Vampires in Self-Driving Cars".

note: I don't know if the writer of this piece, Lloyd Alter, wears heels. I was thinking something along the lines of Flagg Bros. mid-seventies super-funk platforms. But looking at the picture in his mini-bio, maybe not.
note 2: as we've noted over the years, the "backwards and in heels" quote is sometimes mistakenly attributed to Ginger Rogers.
It is about Ginger Rogers.