Self-driving cars 'lack common sense', says boss of company helping to develop them

Updated: 02:00 EDT, 16 May 2026 Self-driving cars have been slammed by an industry boss as lacking 'common sense' after one tried to drive itself down a flooded road in the US.Igal Raichelgauz, chief executive of Autobrains, a company which supplies artificial intelligence technology for driverless cars, told the Financial Times Future of the Car event that autonomous cars learning by example 'is not enough'.He also warned that some manufacturers 'feeding examples' of road conditions to their self-driving vehicles can lead to issues if something unexpected happens.Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, has seen almost 3,800 vehicles recalled in the US after an incident in San Antonio, Texas, last month: faced with a flooded road, the empty Waymo robotaxi drove into the flood and was swept away.Waymo is currently testing its autonomous ride-hailing service in London.Waymo has partnered with Jaguar Land Rover to outfit Jaguar I-Pace electric cars with 'Waymo Driver' – the firm's autonomous driving tech, but a human safety driver is always present while testing is underway. Igal Raichelgauz, chief executive of Autobrains, a company which supplies artificial intelligence technology for driverless cars, has said that self-driving cars lack 'common sense'Drivers and pedestrians can see Waymo cars on the streets of London currently as Waymo races to bring fully self-driving taxis to the capital by the end of the year. However, several worrying incidents have already arisen.In the last month or so a Waymo taxi ploughed into a taped-off crime scene in Harlesden, north-west London, and residents of a street in Shoreditch, east London, have complained about Waymo vehicles driving through a no-through road, forcing them to then reverse back up it with a loud siren sounding.In another recent incident a man attacked a Waymo taxi in south-west London by lobbing what appears to be a rock at the side of the car multiple times.Captured on another driver's dashcam footage, a pedestrian can be seen storming up to the vehicle as it was stopped at a red light near Battersea Park.The safety driver in the Waymo car then accelerates through a red light in order to get away from the attacker, who appears to follow on foot.To navigate without a human driving and respond to situations like this, robotaxis - whether Waymo, Wayve or Lyft - use a range of autonomous driving systems in their cars including a combination of LiDAR, radar, cameras, and AI.AI learning as it goes is what's worrying Igal Raichelgauz.He told the FT event: 'If you want the car to react to a red light, you have to feed it a lot of examples. Eventually you would need to see thousands or millions of examples just to react to a traffic light, and this limits those systems.'We want to pass the knowledge through reasoning. Learning by examples is important, but it is not enough — we need systems that can reason and adapt to situations beyond the training set.'Waymo says data shows its technology is involved in five times fewer injury-causing collisions and 12 times fewer injury-causing collisions with pedestrians compared to humans.It states that in 96 million rider-only miles Waymo Driver has been involved in 11 times fewer crashes involving serious injuries than human drivers.Last year Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana commented: 'Waymo is making roads safer and transportation more accessible where we operate. We've demonstrated how to responsibly scale fully autonomous ride-hailing, and we can't wait to expand the benefits of our technology to the United Kingdom.'Responding to the incident in Texas, Waymo said the recall was issued after it 'identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways.Waymo said: 'We are working to implement additional software safeguards and have put mitigations in place, including refining our extreme weather operations during periods of intense rain, limiting access to areas where flash flooding might occur.'Save on services and MOTs - and keep track of your car's documents The This is Money Motoring Club is designed to make car ownership cheaper and simpler for This is Money and Daily Mail readers.Powered by MotorEasy it's the place to keep on top of tax, MOTs and servicing - and manage the important documents and receipts that boost your car’s value.You can also save money on maintenance and repairs - and book into one of 10,000 trusted workshops nationwide.New members receive a £20 reward voucher, which you can put towards repairs or even a warranty - giving you peace of mind that if something goes wrong, you won’t be left footing the bill. You can even get £20 off an MOT with one of MotorEasy's listed providers. > Find out more about the This is Money Motoring Club