The automotive world is racing ahead with autonomous and self-driving vehicles, arguing that when computer brains take the wheel away from humans, commuters will love the convenience and everyone will be safer.
The Nissan-Renault Alliance is only the latest in a raft of car companies all staking claim to leadership here. Nissan-Renault says it will launch more than 10 vehicles with autonomous drive technology in the next four years.
“You have autonomous drive and you have driverless cars and they are two different things,” says Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn.
Autonomous drive, says the Alliance, is expected to help further reduce driver error, which is responsible for up to 90 per cent of all fatalities. Nissan-Renault is one of many car companies touting autonomous technology as a safety feature.\
Meantime, Kia now has a new sub-brand called Drive Wise which will house future Kia models with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). The goal: offer partially autonomous vehicles by 2020, then have fully autonomous vehicles in the market by 2030.
Mercedes-Benz, which pioneered autonomous technology with the most recent S-Class, is also claiming leadership, pointing to the latest E-Class — the world’s first standard production vehicle to be awarded a test licence for autonomous driving in Nevada.
Mercedes-Benz R&D chief Thomas Weber (left) gets the license plate for an E-Class that will be tested as an autonomous vehicle in Nevada.
The E-Class licensed in Nevada is not some odd-looking test rig equipped with all sorts of hardware and software add-ons, but a normal car “already extensively equipped with intelligent technology.” All Mercedes has done is “make some smaller software modifications to the DRIVE PILOT control unit,” says the company.
Thomas Weber, head of research and development at Mercedes, says “The new E-Class is therefore another big step to the fully automated vehicle.”
And on and on…
Ford Motor says it will triple its fleet of fully autonomous Ford Fusion Hybrid test vehicles, bringing to 30 the number of autonomous test rides Ford has on the road in California, Arizona and Michigan. Ford’s R & D chief, Raj Nair, says his company is committed “to make autonomous vehicles available for millions of people.”
Honda and Toyota have joined these and others, including Audi and Tesla, in the race for leadership in vehicles that are intended to run on public roads without the driver touching the steering wheel.
Not to be lost in this flurry of interest and action is an important distinction: autonomous vehicles are not the same as self-driving vehicles.
“You have autonomous drive and you have driverless cars and they are two different things,” says Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn. Autonomous vehicles require a driver behind the wheel, though that driver may be freed from active steering, accelerating and braking on the highway and in traffic jams.
More advanced systems, available within the next two years will do things like changing lanes safely with the driver’s hands off the wheel. By 2020, says Ghosn, you will be able to drive in the city with your hands off the wheel. That’s the autonomous car in a nutshell.
“Driverless cars in our opinion are much, much later,” says Ghosn. “Why am I saying this? Obviously the ability of the regulator to accept cars in a traffic jam with the driver’s hands off the wheel is much more likely than the regulators accepting cars without the driver. Cars without the driver are going to require a lot of demonstration and testing before they (regulators) accept them.”
Autonomous cars – cars that drive themselves, but are supervised by a licensed driver in the driver’s seat — are coming because consumers want them, adds Ghosn.
“When you are in a traffic jam — and a lot of people spend hours in traffic jams – being able to do something else in a very safe way is very valuable,” he says.
With every car company on board with this trend, consumers will soon need to make choices about which car company offers the best, most reliable autonomous system. Researchers Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, say the hardware and software involved here — sensing hardware, spatial maps and software algorithms – are likely to vary among manufacturers. Some will be better than others. This means on-road performance will also vary, presenting a future challenge for consumers trying to separate the best from the rest.
Regardless of the system, the researchers argue, regulators will require licensed drivers behind the wheel in every autonomous vehicle – to take over just in case the system cannot manage the traffic or weather conditions, or some other unforeseen circumstance.
So the autonomous future will not be without licensed drivers. They’ll be needed as a kind of fail-safe, though most of the time drivers or “pilots” will do little more than program the destination.
The automotive world is racing ahead with autonomous and self-driving vehicles, arguing that when computer brains take the wheel away from humans, commuters will love the convenience and everyone will be safer.
The Nissan-Renault Alliance is only the latest in a raft of car companies all staking claim to leadership here. Nissan-Renault says it will launch more than 10 vehicles with autonomous drive technology in the next four years.
“You have autonomous drive and you have driverless cars and they are two different things,” says Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn.
Autonomous drive, says the Alliance, is expected to help further reduce driver error, which is responsible for up to 90 per cent of all fatalities. Nissan-Renault is one of many car companies touting autonomous technology as a safety feature.\
Meantime, Kia now has a new sub-brand called Drive Wise which will house future Kia models with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). The goal: offer partially autonomous vehicles by 2020, then have fully autonomous vehicles in the market by 2030.
Mercedes-Benz, which pioneered autonomous technology with the most recent S-Class, is also claiming leadership, pointing to the latest E-Class — the world’s first standard production vehicle to be awarded a test licence for autonomous driving in Nevada.
Mercedes-Benz R&D chief Thomas Weber (left) gets the license plate for an E-Class that will be tested as an autonomous vehicle in Nevada.
The E-Class licensed in Nevada is not some odd-looking test rig equipped with all sorts of hardware and software add-ons, but a normal car “already extensively equipped with intelligent technology.” All Mercedes has done is “make some smaller software modifications to the DRIVE PILOT control unit,” says the company.
Thomas Weber, head of research and development at Mercedes, says “The new E-Class is therefore another big step to the fully automated vehicle.”
And on and on…
Ford Motor says it will triple its fleet of fully autonomous Ford Fusion Hybrid test vehicles, bringing to 30 the number of autonomous test rides Ford has on the road in California, Arizona and Michigan. Ford’s R & D chief, Raj Nair, says his company is committed “to make autonomous vehicles available for millions of people.”
Honda and Toyota have joined these and others, including Audi and Tesla, in the race for leadership in vehicles that are intended to run on public roads without the driver touching the steering wheel.
Not to be lost in this flurry of interest and action is an important distinction: autonomous vehicles are not the same as self-driving vehicles.
“You have autonomous drive and you have driverless cars and they are two different things,” says Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn. Autonomous vehicles require a driver behind the wheel, though that driver may be freed from active steering, accelerating and braking on the highway and in traffic jams.
More advanced systems, available within the next two years will do things like changing lanes safely with the driver’s hands off the wheel. By 2020, says Ghosn, you will be able to drive in the city with your hands off the wheel. That’s the autonomous car in a nutshell.
“Driverless cars in our opinion are much, much later,” says Ghosn. “Why am I saying this? Obviously the ability of the regulator to accept cars in a traffic jam with the driver’s hands off the wheel is much more likely than the regulators accepting cars without the driver. Cars without the driver are going to require a lot of demonstration and testing before they (regulators) accept them.”
Autonomous cars – cars that drive themselves, but are supervised by a licensed driver in the driver’s seat — are coming because consumers want them, adds Ghosn.
“When you are in a traffic jam — and a lot of people spend hours in traffic jams – being able to do something else in a very safe way is very valuable,” he says.
With every car company on board with this trend, consumers will soon need to make choices about which car company offers the best, most reliable autonomous system. Researchers Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, say the hardware and software involved here — sensing hardware, spatial maps and software algorithms – are likely to vary among manufacturers. Some will be better than others. This means on-road performance will also vary, presenting a future challenge for consumers trying to separate the best from the rest.
Regardless of the system, the researchers argue, regulators will require licensed drivers behind the wheel in every autonomous vehicle – to take over just in case the system cannot manage the traffic or weather conditions, or some other unforeseen circumstance.
So the autonomous future will not be without licensed drivers. They’ll be needed as a kind of fail-safe, though most of the time drivers or “pilots” will do little more than program the destination.
About the Author / Jeremy Cato
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