The world’s biggest maker of sensors for self-driving cars has poured cold water on the chance of rapid growth for fully autonomous vehicles, saying society and regulators are not ready to accept deaths caused by machines that drive themselves.
David Li, co-founder of Shanghai-based lidar maker Hesai, said he remained “conservative” about the pace of scaling up fully autonomous vehicles.
“Close to one million people lose their lives every year to car accidents. If a technology company builds a vehicle that kills one person every year, that’s one-millionth of the difference, but it will have trouble to survive,” said Li in an interview ahead of his company’s listing in Hong Kong.