WeRide CEO says autonomous driving can’t guarantee 100% safety, but it could be 10 times safer than human drivers within the decade.

Iterative invention process It made headlines For accidents, they are no different from those that occur in autonomous vehicles Made nowwith 3,979 accidents involving autonomous vehicles from 2019 to 2024, 10% of which resulted in injuries. While the accident rate for traditional cars was 4.1 accidents per million miles driven in 2021, the rate for self-driving cars was more than double that in 2021. 9.1 per million milesAccording to the National Law Review. This is all part of what it takes to make technology better for future generations, Hahn said.

“If you just look at old news, old newspapers, and one plane that the Wright brothers just invented, a plane crash is going to make headlines at any time, even (if) no one gets hurt,” Hahn said at the Fortune Global Forum in Riyadh on Sunday. “It is so. It is our human civilization and our history.

He continued: “As entrepreneurs, as inventors, we must be brave enough.” “We must be brave enough to move forward in the direction of innovation, because we live in the age of artificial intelligence. Think of our children, our children. If we can achieve this, they will appreciate us.”

About 1,500 self-driving vehicles are in commercial operation in the United States, and the number is expected to rise to 35,000 in 2023, according to Goldman Sachs. Data. Mackenzie And the company He predicts The industry will generate revenues of $300 billion to $400 billion in the next decade globally. WeRide, a Chinese company that gives Google’s Waymo a run for its money, Announce Last week, it will begin providing automated taxi services in Riyadh via Uber. She holds driving permits in Saudi Arabia, China, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, France and the United States

Despite the risks, Hahn said autonomous driving today is still safer than a human driver. While accident rates for self-driving vehicles are higher than those for conventional vehicles, the injury and fatality rates for automated driving are higher. Less remains Compared to traditional cars.

“This is something new, and nothing new is perfect, but it is now reaching a certain level of maturity that can be deployed on a large scale,” Hahn said. “I’m not saying we can provide some kind of 100% safe transportation tool, but we can provide something that might be 10 times safer than a human driver.”

development Self-driving technology

Early evidence suggests that self-driving technology may help improve road safety and reduce accidents. December 2024 a report By the insurance company Swiss Recommissioned by Waymo, found in an analysis of liability claims that self-driving cars have 92% fewer bodily injury claims and 88% fewer property damage claims than their human-driven counterparts.

Goldman Sachs analysts noted that fewer self-driving car accidents could occur Reducing insurance costs By more than 50% over the next 15 years, from about $0.50 per mile in 2025 to $0.23 per mile in 2040. Analysts noted that we are unlikely to see self-driving vehicles as personal cars in the near future.

Hahn said governments, including Saudi Arabia and other parts of the United States, were eager to work with WeRide and create a regulatory framework to accommodate vehicles on the road. He predicted that over the next five years, the robotaxi industry is expected to grow, with every major city preparing to adopt autonomous driving, as seen in San Francisco, where there was 800 Waymos on the road As of August 2025, that’s nearly three times what the company announced in March of this year.

Hahn said the real shift with technology will happen within the decade, with the development of L5 vehicles. Self-driving vehicles operate on a five-point scale of automation, with Level 1 requiring some driver assistance, and Level 5 requiring no assistance. WeRide currently produces vehicles that operate in the L2 to L4 range, demonstrating significant partial automation. Hahn described the development of the efficient L5 vehicles as the industry’s “ChatGPT moment” capable of revolutionizing the future of road travel.

“I think the L5, in 10 years, will see driving capabilities on par with the best human drivers,” Hahn said.