It seems like not a week goes by without some kind of update on driverless cars. The technology keeps expanding, reports flow in on live test drives, and the list of potential benefits continues to grow. If you wanted to buy one, you can – sort of; it just won’t be the fully automated kind that you might be thinking about.
The Society for Automotive Engineering (SAE) publishes standards for the automobile industry and lists six different levels to define what “driverless” means:
- Level 0 means people do all the driving
- Levels 1 through 3 identify certain braking and steering automations that assist drivers, but do not actually do the driving.
- Level 4, where the technology is currently, represents cars that can do all the driving, but only under certain circumstances such as limited mapped geographic areas.
- Level 5 is the end-goal of fully automated driving: operation without human interaction.
Although great strides are being made in driverless car tech, there are many things that still prohibit it from going to market. Something like ensuring you won’t get involved in a car accident lawsuit because the technology is still lacking legal regulations and oversight is still a real concern. In order to avoid this type of problem, an advanced, error-proof imaging system is imperative to alleviate safety concerns and eventually submit the cars for legal consideration.
The Challenges of Bringing Driverless Cars to Market
Currently, cost represents the biggest obstacle for driverless cars to enter consumer markets. The driverless technology components alone can add $100,000 to the cost of the vehicle.
Until that price comes down, the mass market opportunity for driverless cars will remain elusive. Having said that, many in the industry believe that future is not far off, perhaps just a few years down the road.
As with any new advancement, competing technologies exist that vie for acceptance. Once one preferred technology rises above the rest, costs will come down as the research focus shifts from inventing the tech to refining it.
Several Technologies Are Being Explored
The technology divide at the moment is between using a combination of video, radar, and ultrasound versus a laser-based system known as LIDAR. Of all the systems, LIDAR is generating the most excitement.
LIDAR works by shooting laser light off surrounding objects and measuring the length of time for it to bounce back. The system aggregates all the data to create a digital image of the surrounding area in order to navigate it.
Tesla, for instance, believes the sensor approach is the way to go, while Google has gone with LIDAR. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages.
To date, video and radar, while cheaper, lack visual detail. LIDAR, on the other hand, provides exacting detail but struggles with changing weather conditions since the lasers detect raindrops and snowflakes as well as people and other cars.
Stiff Competition For LIDAR Systems
In 2017, financial investment in the industry passed the $3 billion mark. Beyond just the radar versus LIDAR divide, the latter itself has several different competing technologies. Research site CB Insights notes that over 50 different startup companies are competing to bring their specific tech to market, with LIDAR startups having attracted some $678 million from investors.
Major automakers are rushing to keep up with the changes in the industry. Ford and General Motors have each made deep investments in LIDAR research, both through acquisitions and their own inhouse R&D. Major automotive parts and service companies like Bosch and Aptiv (formerly Delphi) are working on their own systems. Even Uber has gotten into the field.
Obviously, not all these technologies will survive, and that’s a good thing as far as consumers are concerned. Once the industry decides on a preferred technology, prices will drop. In the meantime, the overall technology is getting less expensive as manufacturers find ways to make it smaller and cheaper, much like digital camera tech shrunk to fit inside mobile phones.
Author: Catherine
