Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car

by Alex Davies

Alex Davies tells the “illuminating and important narrative” (Steven Levy, author of The Inside Story) of the quest to develop driverless cars—and the fierce competition between Google, Uber, and other companies in a race to revolutionize our lives.The self-driving car has been one of the most vaunted technological breakthroughs of recent years. But early promises that these autonomous vehicles would soon be on the roads have proven premature. Alex Davies follows the twists and turns of the story from its origins to today.The story starts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which was charged with developing a land-based equivalent to the drone, a vehicle that could operate in war zones without risking human lives. DARPA issued a series of three “Grand Challenges” that attracted visionaries, many of them students and amateurs, who took the technology from Jetsons-style fantasy to near-reality. The young stars of the Challenges soon connected with Silicon Valley giants Google and Uber, intent on delivering a new way of driving to the civilian world.Soon the automakers joined the quest, some on their own, others in partnership with the tech titans. But as road testing progressed, it became clear that the challenges of driving a car without human assistance were more formidable than anticipated.Davies profiles the industry’s key players from the early enthusiasm of the DARPA days to their growing awareness that while this spin on artificial intelligence isn’t yet ready for rush-hour traffic, driverless cars are poised to remake how the world moves. Driven explores “the epic tale of competition and comradery, long odds and underdogs, all in service of a world-changing moonshot” (Andy Greenberg, author of A New Era of Cyberwar).

Genres: Nonfiction, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Business, Science, History, Audiobook

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 2, 2020

Reviews

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very good book if what you're looking for is a chronological chronicle of the 'race' to create a fully autonomous car. The author has done his homework - it all starts with DARPA competitions and follows up with the efforts of companies like Waymo (Google) or Uber. The (in)famous Levandowski scandal has also got sufficient coverage. So in this category, it's the best book on the topic I've read.

However, if you expect more, e.g. more analytical approach than just relaying facts to the audience, this book won't satisfy your expectations. Davies doesn't dive deep at all, he doesn't even try to answer (in non-trivial details) such key questions like: why it's so hard to build an autonomous cars? can we classify the challenges to meet this goal? which ones (of those categories) have already been (more or less) tackled and which ones are still the pain-in-the-...? what's the nature of the obstacles? did all the companies follow a similar way - or maybe they approaches have fundamental differences?

None of such questions are answered here. Google tries hard, Uber tries hard, crashes happen, there was a victim, there was a leaver who joined the competition - it's enough to cover what's happened but not enough to tell use how far we currently are from a fully autonomous vehicle or even - who's currently ahead of the group.

3-3.5 stars

[Kane See · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written historical account but lacks technical depth and current state-of-the-art. Technical analysis focuses around hardware: wiring the cars and sensors, but dismisses the importance of software, deep learning, and big data. Dives deep into a lot of big major players (Google, GM, CMU, Stanford) but only a handful of passing references to Tesla, which is arguably one of, if not the leader in the space.

Overall nice historical account but not an accurate depiction of state-of-the-art

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for a book club that I host at my work, and I wasn't sure what to expect going in as I don't proclaim to be a car person. However, Davies has a way with words and pulls you right into a narrative around key players that have been working towards making autonomous cars a reality. Even if you're not a car buff this is still a fascinating read, given that it's more about the people, the history, and the story more than anything (but don't worry, plenty of info on these vehicles as well). Driven gives plenty of food for thought in regards to where transportation may head in the future. Check it out!

[Vivek Vikram Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book for people tracking the race to get to fully autonomous mobility. Gets a little boring in the middle but picks up pace in the last third of the book. Informative, balanced and extremely well researched

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a page turner or, since I listened to most of it in my somewhat self-driving Tesla, a speaker burner. Alex Davies' words propel the story with verve and poetic justice using Anthony Levandowski as the connecting thread. The book tells the fascinating history and backstories of the DARPA contests, Google, GM, Ford, and Uber's ventures into self-driving cars (oddly, little is said about Tesla's efforts, which have become consumer items). Appropriate for a transportation story, it's all a race, whether real (DARPA) or economic (post-DARPA). And all that racing makes for an engaging book.

Having dabbled with AI in the 90s, I had questioned the ability of it to handle edge cases for driving. Based on the book and my personal experience, it turns out that that concern was not misplaced. The Tesla does a great job on the highway 99% of the time, but it's those 1% misses (crap on the road, construction zones, and BMW drivers) that can be rather terrifying, something that keeps me vigilant. Nevertheless, I hope someone wins this race sooner rather than later.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal Look At Emerging Tech. I'll be upfront here: I am an experienced programmer that has been coding professionally since around the time covered more towards the middle of this book, when the push for the Autonomous Car was leaving DARPA and beginning to be pushed more by private industry. While I've never worked in anything remotely similar to this particular type of programming (my own work usually involves some form of web application, even when automating business processing), I thus have a degree of insight into the challenges from at least that side of the house.

And y'all, this book covers the history of this particular tech and its challenges in stunning clarity, as one might expect from a WIRED reporter. This is a fascinating subject filled with... shall we say, "colorful"... characters and outrageous stunts, and Davies paints them all in 8k, warts and all. For this to be a debut book is even more remarkable, as Davies puts together a long form narrative structure that rivals the clarity of even far more seasoned science book writers. Very much recommended.

[TΞΞL❍CK Mith!lesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps Hollywood is to blame for raising our expectations, but a few years ago, it seemed as if self-driving cars were going to be here sooner rather than later. In Driven (Simon & Schuster), Business Insider senior editor Alex Davies tells the dramatic, colorful story of the quest to develop driverless cars—and the fierce competition among Google, Uber, and other tech and auto giants in the race to revolutionize our lives.

[Dylan Chua · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story starts off with with DARPA's challenge to create an autonomous vehicle by having a race in the Mojave desert in 2003, tracking the more prominent parties (Whittaker, Levandowski, Peterson among others) involved in that first 2 races and how they built on the result from that nascent attempt to where we are today.

For anyone who is interested in self driving vehicles, this will definitely serve to plug in a few holes on how we got to where we are today. Although light on the technical details, it manages to shed light and makes us appreciate all the work that goes into making a self driving car. From the different approaches, technologies, algorithms that makes this technology possible, and offers a gilmpse of what is possible in the future (or are we there already?). It manages to weave a coherent storyline that is at times overwhelmng with all the parties involved, with the various parties going their seperate ways and then somehow tying it all together at the end.

However, for a book that is on self driving vehicles, there is barely any mention of the stalwart of autonomus vehicles now, like Tesla, Innoviz. There is a very heavy emphasis on Google (due to Levandowski's tenure there, and then Uber). Besides a brief mention in the ending chapters, nothing ties up the story to Tesla, while practically half the book was on Google's efforts to develop the self driving vehicle under Levandowski's and Chris Umson's watch. This seems a bit disappointing actually, given how Google's efforts have somewhat fallen on the side now. There was some mention on the dispute between Google and Uber, but even that was lacking in details. And given that Uber has largely remained a transport provider, unimportant as well.

Although well written and researched, the story is intrguing and captivating enought on its own. But for a book that is on self driving vehicles, it just seems a tad disappointing in not connecting the reader to the larger picture at hand and the current situation for self driving vehicles as it stands. It's like a book on fast food that barely makes any mention of Mcdonald's, it might not be bad, but it just feels sorely out of touch and point.

[Sudhagar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and researched book focusing on the origin story of the autonomous car, from DARPA's competition to present day. It provides insight into the teams and personalities involved the development of the autonomous car.

While I appreciate this well-written account, I finished the book a little disappointed. For one, there seems to be an overemphasis on one person - Levandowski. Despite this guy's obvious toxic and criminal behaviour, the author seems to present him as some of sort of genius and one of the fathers of the autonomous car.

This account ignores the contribution of others who have made the autonomous car possible - for example the advances in Machine Learning and IC technology, without which such car wouldn't be possible. Instead, there is an overemphasis on the effort of the Google team.

I also find it strange that the author has failed to cover Tesla's contribution at all. There are many other manufacturers (auto and start-ups) have contributed to the autonomous car development but sadly again, this was not even mentioned.

In summary - well written, fast moving and interesting book but doesn't provide a complete history of the autonomous car and the key players involved in the development.

[Nathan Hatch · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked

Relevance to my job. Anyone who works on autonomous ground vehicles is likely to enjoy this book. It has a few (very few) tidbits about the technical details of the approach to self-driving cars, but many, many details about the history of the technology and the people involved in developing it. Apparently, the reason that Google Chauffeur (aka Waymo) is ahead of everyone else is simply that it got started five years earlier. Google's executives had the funds, and they were willing to take the risk. Almost everyone who later founded their own self-driving company originally worked for Chauffeur. In fact, the reason so many other self-driving companies sprouted up around 2015 was because Chauffeur's vesting scheme suddenly made many of the original team members independently wealthy, so they had the security to leave and pursue their own ideas.

Among other things, the book discusses: DARPA, Velodyne, how to label traversability, and Uber ATG's fatal 2018 crash. It even mentions Kamala Harris in her role as California's attorney general.

What I didn't like

I can't give it five stars, just because the target audience is so specific. It also feels like maybe the book was written too early. The race is not over yet!

[Vovka · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy-reading history of modern autonomous vehicle development efforts, focusing on the period between the first DARPA Grand Challenge (2004) to present-day. There's a lot of focus on some of the individuals involved (the criminally convicted Levandowski in particular) that makes this a bit better than simply skimming through the more thorough (but far more boring) Wikipedia article on the same subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...

Would've loved to hear more about the hard challenges, the triumphs over challenge, and the failures. The section on the leap forward from the first Darpa Challenge to the second challenge was the most compelling and interesting.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really two - that should perhaps be cleaved from each other, but are necessary to support one another.

The first half is filled with a break-neck, whiplash narrative of the actual race to create the idea in the first place, which is a thrill-a-moment narrative stuffed with essential linear details which the author must have had lots of fun getting in perfect order. This was the exciting stuff.

The second half is filled bureaucracy and frustration, which are important to the overall story, but kind of filled with the doldrums due to the inability to push the technology into the wider market. That stuff can't really be made exciting.

They're two halves to a whole, however, and that's just the way it has to be.

[Eddie Chua · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I applaud how autonomous has and can help fill the gaps in the supply chain of transportation, this book also highlights of the complexity thinking and decision-making ability of humans via driving itself. To remove human out from the car, it to eliminate this opportunity for humans to practice this ability. The human thinking is beyond a one or zero, of either-or. And while AI and deep learning is advancing, and be the key to unlocking the next level of autonomous driving, we have to decide if it is for us and what is the real cost, looking past only the benefits for implementation or adaptation. I won't and can't the next evolution of change, though I would like to retain my enjoyment of driving.

[Glynis DeMone · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was not a huge fan. It briefly touches on too many different people and spends a little too much time talking about one engineer that seems like a terrible person but the author never seemed very critical of. It didn't feel like it had a good flow so it was a bit of a chore to get through. I get that it is probably hard to write a book about something that hasn't been fully realized yet but it just seemed very surface level on way to many different attempts to do it and not in depth enough on the actual technical stuff.

[Dan Watts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have my doubts about whether self-driving cars will ever be a thing, but I'm impressed by the ingenuity and bravado of those who are working on the technology.

This is the story of these engineers, starting from a 2004 government-sponsored contest. I appreciated that the book focused narrowly on their work of the last 18 years, without branching off into their life stories.

The book doesn't try to explain how the technology works, dealing instead with the personalities and their milestone achievements, so it's accessible to readers without any knowledge of the subject.

[Sunil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite well written. Covers the whole history of autonomous car with all the main players covered in detail. By reading this book, one can get clear message how tough it is as a technology and why it is taking so much time even though the best of the best technical people are working on it. Read it if you are interested in autonomous cars. Though it doesn't cover the technical details much, it still provides good overview in the this exciting and challenging field.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I liked this book. I learned a lot and had a lot of my assumptions about this space corrected. The self-driving car industry simultaneously seems much further along than I thought, and also just as stuck as I thought.

The main downside of this book is that few of the people in it seemed likeable. And that’s not necessarily the book’s fault, it might be how it is, but I didn’t really have anyone I was cheering for.

[Robert Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining read - better than I expected. It tells the story of the recent development of self-driving cars beginning with the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004 and finishing with Waymo launching a commercial taxi service in Phoenix in 2018. The book is light on technical details but tells a good story about the people involved, the competition to win the DARPA challenges and the painful realization of the difficulty of making a commercially viable autonomous car.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The DARPA grand challenges were a pivotal moment for autonomous car development. This book goes into the teams that participated in the challenge. The author also goes into intricate detail on the key people in the development of autonomous cars. There are dozens of people covered in this book and it can be a bit overwhelming. However, the author does a great job detailing the history and relationships between different researchers. I look forward to more books by Alex Davies.

[Corina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chronicles the people and organizations who were part of the development of autonomous vehicle from the DARPA challenge to Chauffeur/ Waymo and Uber. As historical accounts go, the writing was fine, but it was pretty slow, depending on Anthony Levandowski for a lot of the drama. Wished there was more about the development of the technology and more reflection on its impact and the promises and dilemmas it raises.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 - journalistic account of US-centered autonomous car industry advancement over the past two decades. Less broad of a vantage point than I would have expected, more of a narrower scope story-telling focused on the early DARPA autonomous driving competitions and the key people involved in building out the industry from there. Later chapters are more interesting in terms of an overview of key moments in autonomous driving industry, contentious legal battles, and major breakthroughs.

[Joe Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent recent history of the evolution of autonomous car technology and the intersection of Silicon Valley and Detroit as the tech and auto industries began to compete and partner on the very challenging race to self-driving technology.

A compelling, character-driven story: an impressive first book from longtime auto journalist Alex Davies.

[Karsten Kutterer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great read on the (short) history of autonomous vehicles. It’s really cool to learn about its beginnings, key innovators and how things have developed over the last two decades. If autonomous vehicles are interesting to you, you’ll enjoy this book. It’s well written and has some moments of drama due to various competitions to develop the best autonomy system.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast read that was fast paced. Good coverage of the start of USA autonomous vehicles and many of characters involved. Covered successes, blunders, and overall progression in the field. Illustrates the complexities of the field and the risks when shortcuts are accepted.

[Nat Zorach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good introductory read but not much in the way of technical depth or social context

[Karol Rychwalski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book, however, too short. I would have expected more about fairly recent developments and about efforts across China, Russia.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author paints a complete picture of the history of DARPA and its involvement in the race for autonomous vehicles. Experts may argue this lacks technical depth, but this book satisfies all needs to understand the current landscape for someone unfamiliar with such technology.

Alex Davies is clearly well-versed in this space.

[Santana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fire fire fire the author obviously knows his shit and did lots of research but the writing is A1 fr

[Kristen Campbell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rehash of information I already had learned (probably for WIRED. But a few surprises.

[Robbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read history of the current state of the autonomous car. Strong egos, big money & fierce competition.