Post by account_disabled on Dec 21, 2017 5:56:19 GMT -6
Hi,
A project to test driverless vehicles that launched Wednesday in the U.K. has brought focus on safety, insurance and regulatory issues. The U.K. project will conduct trials of driverless shuttle cars in London’s Greenwich borough and in Bristol. The government will study public reaction and related legal and insurance aspects. John Vincent Cable, the British secretary of state for business, has said he expects driverless vehicles to become a £900 billion ($1.4 trillion) industry over the next decade.
Driverless vehicles will certainly become reality, but not any day soon, said Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie. “The auto industry is over 100 years old,”he said. “[The introduction of driverless vehicles] is probably the biggest set of changes since the 1920s.”
MacDuffie discussed the technology on the Knowledge@Wharton show on Wharton Business Radio on SiriusXM channel 111. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.) “[Driverless technology] is at that exciting moment where everybody is filled with all the visions of the future Twitter ,” he noted.
Rapid Progress
According to MacDuffie, the technology for driverless vehicles has shown rapid progress worldwide. “The technology [is] racing ahead of everything else, including agreement to use the technologies, how to regulate them and how to insure them in this case,” he said, adding that there will likely be a long wait before the technology moves from “driver-assist” features to one where drivers can take their hands off their vehicle steering wheels.
Meanwhile, the British example “shows it can happen now,”he said. He cited Google’s extensive trials with driverless vehicles. “They have vehicles that can drive completely hands off,”he said. He also referenced Google’s recent announcement that its efforts will focus on settings for low-speed and controlled-access, much like in the British trials. “A lot of the complicated issues about the use of this technology go away when you get to very low speeds, and you don’t have as many distractions for the vehicle to deal with.”
Beyond Cruise Control
Meanwhile, driver-assist technologies have advanced rapidly, said MacDuffie. He noted that driver-assist features such as cruise control have been around for many years. “We’ve got vehicles already that have lane-drift alert,”he said. “Before long, it will be common to have lane control — a little bit like cruise control — where the car will keep you in the lane, and not just warn you when you are drifting.”
Of late, automakers have introduced newer options such as one that allows a car to parallel park automatically. “You get into the right position, push a button, take your hands off and it does the steering, the braking, the positioning and everything else,”MacDuffie said of that feature. He credited the newer driver-assist features to advances in sensor technologies and the ability to process sensor data.
MacDuffie said there are two parallel developments that would further make way for driverless cars. One would be automakers steadily including more and more driver-assist features in their vehicles— initially as options, but regulators may mandatorily require some of them, he said. For example, rear-view cameras are currently optional but will be mandatory in the U.S. after May 2018. The second development would be the introduction of low-speed, controlled-access features, MacDuffie noted.
For More Reference: Minimalist Animation
A project to test driverless vehicles that launched Wednesday in the U.K. has brought focus on safety, insurance and regulatory issues. The U.K. project will conduct trials of driverless shuttle cars in London’s Greenwich borough and in Bristol. The government will study public reaction and related legal and insurance aspects. John Vincent Cable, the British secretary of state for business, has said he expects driverless vehicles to become a £900 billion ($1.4 trillion) industry over the next decade.
Driverless vehicles will certainly become reality, but not any day soon, said Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie. “The auto industry is over 100 years old,”he said. “[The introduction of driverless vehicles] is probably the biggest set of changes since the 1920s.”
MacDuffie discussed the technology on the Knowledge@Wharton show on Wharton Business Radio on SiriusXM channel 111. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.) “[Driverless technology] is at that exciting moment where everybody is filled with all the visions of the future Twitter ,” he noted.
Rapid Progress
According to MacDuffie, the technology for driverless vehicles has shown rapid progress worldwide. “The technology [is] racing ahead of everything else, including agreement to use the technologies, how to regulate them and how to insure them in this case,” he said, adding that there will likely be a long wait before the technology moves from “driver-assist” features to one where drivers can take their hands off their vehicle steering wheels.
Meanwhile, the British example “shows it can happen now,”he said. He cited Google’s extensive trials with driverless vehicles. “They have vehicles that can drive completely hands off,”he said. He also referenced Google’s recent announcement that its efforts will focus on settings for low-speed and controlled-access, much like in the British trials. “A lot of the complicated issues about the use of this technology go away when you get to very low speeds, and you don’t have as many distractions for the vehicle to deal with.”
Beyond Cruise Control
Meanwhile, driver-assist technologies have advanced rapidly, said MacDuffie. He noted that driver-assist features such as cruise control have been around for many years. “We’ve got vehicles already that have lane-drift alert,”he said. “Before long, it will be common to have lane control — a little bit like cruise control — where the car will keep you in the lane, and not just warn you when you are drifting.”
Of late, automakers have introduced newer options such as one that allows a car to parallel park automatically. “You get into the right position, push a button, take your hands off and it does the steering, the braking, the positioning and everything else,”MacDuffie said of that feature. He credited the newer driver-assist features to advances in sensor technologies and the ability to process sensor data.
MacDuffie said there are two parallel developments that would further make way for driverless cars. One would be automakers steadily including more and more driver-assist features in their vehicles— initially as options, but regulators may mandatorily require some of them, he said. For example, rear-view cameras are currently optional but will be mandatory in the U.S. after May 2018. The second development would be the introduction of low-speed, controlled-access features, MacDuffie noted.
For More Reference: Minimalist Animation