Reefa Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 Quote Self-driving cars are coming — sooner than you think. But when will we get there, and how will we get there? Two terms for the transition have become standard in the auto industry. There's the "evolutionary" path to autonomous vehicles, where today's cars get self-driving features bit by bit — Tesla's autopilot feature, for example. And then there's the "revolutionary" path. That's where totally self-driving cars, like the ones Google is working on, start as test vehicles and become more mainstream as they can drive in more places. There's an ongoing debate over which path is the safer one. But these paths will eventually converge. Based on interviews with people from all over the autonomous technology scene, we've laid out a roadmap of what needs to happen — from both a technological perspective and a regulatory/legal one — before fully autonomous cars are widespread. Experts don't all agree on the exact sequence, so we've pulled together the most cohesive — yet still tentative — timeline to the future of transportation. 2016 Where we are today Evolutionary: Today's most advanced semi-autonomous features can be found in Teslas and a few other cars that allow drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel on a highway. Using a series of sensors and cameras, cars can also merge, self-park, stay within a lane and brake as needed. This tech works particularly well for commercial trucks that operate on highways. Companies like Peloton and NXP are "platooning" trucks — tying them together through a vehicle-to-vehicle communication system. A "pilot" truck drives while those behind can sit and relax. Revolutionary: Google and Ford are testing self-driving cars in structured environments like test tracks, as well as cities with relatively light traffic, like Austin, Texas and Mountain View, Calif. Vehicles travel at slow speeds — up to 25 miles an hour — while gathering data on pedestrians and human drivers; they are also starting to drive at night, and in rain and snow. A patchwork of regulation across the U.S. and Europe allows for testing of self-driving cars in certain states, cities and towns. In the U.S. , the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) is expected to put out guidance on how to deploy semi- and fully autonomous tech this year. 2017 to 2019 The next step Evolutionary: Driver-assistance features get more sophisticated, and will sync up with GPS and navigation. So a driver should be able to input a destination while driving on a highway, turn on adaptive cruise control and let the car drive itself. When it gets to the appropriate exit, the car will return control to the driver. Revolutionary: NHTSA will begin working on rules for testing and deployment of fully autonomous vehicles, without a driver, across the country. In the meantime, companies like Google will be racking up miles to gather data about every single type of situation a self-driving vehicle might encounter; mapping companies will gather as much 3D data in major cities as possible. Car makers and tech companies will have to make sure light detection and ranging (lidar) and radar sensors, as well as cameras and GPS, can work together, while ensuring that each component can function independently if one of them fails. Companies will also be testing vehicles in all climates and environments, including rain and snow. They'll also test cars in more places, moving from test tracks and low-density cities to roads with more foot and vehicle traffic. They'll still be moving slowly, though. Commercial trucks will likely be the first vehicles to hit the road autonomously, if state and federal regulators give them them the go-ahead to work on highways. 2020 End of the decade Evolutionary: Cars equipped with semi-autonomous features will be able to navigate through traffic lights and intersections and stop-and-go traffic — which means they can leave highways and start operating on surface roads that don't have pedestrians. Revolutionary: Highly autonomous cars — which can drive themselves, but still require a human to sit up front in case of emergency — hit the roads. Tesla says it should have a self-driving a car road-ready by then; ride services like Lyft and Uber expect to use highly autonomous cars in specific parts of highly mapped cities or more limited locations like college campuses. Fully automated truck platooning in designated highway lanes may be prevalent. Urban planners will have to figure out how to let different types of transportation — from mass transit to autonomous vehicles — operate along the same routes. Insurance companies and regulators will have to create liability rules. 2020 to 2023 The new frontier Evolutionary: Semi-autonomous features should work in more conditions, like in rain and at night. But automakers working on tech are unlikely to spend time bringing it to city streets. They'll be more focused on enhancing long commutes. Revolutionary: Fully autonomous technology enters the market, which means automakers, drivers, and regulators will be at a turning point. For certain, affluent buyers, autonomous cars may become more appealing then cars that switch between manual and autonomous modes. And the Ubers of the world may start using cars without any drivers at all. Those cars will rack up a ton of miles quickly, since they're always going to be in motion — they'll only have to stop for fueling, pick-up, and drop-off. Which means the cars' shelf life will be much shorter. Local governments will have to reimagine how cities are designed. Will roads become shared space for self-driving cars and pedestrians? Will infrastructure like traffic lights and signs need to communicate with vehicles? And since you'll be able to automatically summon your car, from a parking lot miles away, who needs a garage attached to their house? Still, automakers will need to make sure they get some very important things right: Vehicles will have to understand human signals, such as a pedestrian waving at an intersection, and will need to be able to communicate with pedestrians using lights and voice commands. 2025 to 2030 New players, and a crisis for the auto industry Evolutionary: Semi-autonomous features will continue to get better, but they'll be less interesting, as the auto business moves to fully autonomous cars. Imagine the VCR industry as DVD became ascendant. Revolutionary: Now that most cars are fully automated, sales will decline: More consumers will rely on ride-sharing, or may share a car with multiple owners. But we may still see suburban and rural households either purchasing a single vehicle or neighborhoods sharing a small pool of cars. There will be fewer restrictions on where these cars can operate — instead there'll be more rules on where manual cars can be driven. Car manufacturers, like mobile-phone companies have, will need to find new ways to generate recurring revenue from vehicles for things like data or access to different kinds of content. 2030 The paths converge The evolutionary and revolutionary paths now converge. Automakers will stop manufacturing cars that don't have at least some highly autonomous features. This will happen more quickly if there is, as expected, a steep drop off in personal car ownership rates as more people depend on ride-hail services. Manual driving, meanwhile, will start becoming restricted to geo-fenced areas like a race or test track. Driving your own car will become a hobby or a luxury. 2045 to 2050 Fleet turnover It takes approximately 15 years for an auto fleet to turn over. So if automakers start producing nothing but fully autonomous cars in 2030, the streets and highways will still have a mix of manual, semi-autonomous and manual cars until 2045 or later. The prevalence of used car marketplaces like today's Beepi and Shift exacerbate this turnover rate. Both regulators and the insurance industry will have had to catch up long before this point. Safety standards have to be put in place. The question of liability in cases of accidents has to be answered. And cities may look drastically different. Sidewalks could go away, as pedestrians and cars share the roads. There will be no street parking, just parking garages outside of city centers. And traffic signs and infrastructure may disappear — replaced with smaller, cheaper equipment that only needs to communicate with cars. Their drivers will be gone. source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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