Self-driving car

The fully autonomous self-driving car is just around the corner.

The Level 5 (fully autonomous) self-driving car is just around the corner. Advances in sensor technology, control systems, GPS mapping and artificial intelligence along with huge research and capital outlays by tech companies and automakers have brought driverless vehicles closer to commercialization. But are drivers ready to buy them?

BMW plans to release a fully self-driving car in 2021.(Business Insider, March 2017)

"The German automaker has always operated on a 2021 timeline to launch its self-driving car tech. However, in March 2017, the company said for the first time that it will have a Level 5 autonomous car ready at that point. Level 5 autonomy means the vehicle is capable of handling any driving situation in any area without human intervention. Most automakers are planning to release Level 4 self-driving cars in the next 5 years, which means they are driverless but can only operate in select areas."

BMW's Mini division is developing one of the first models.

Photo: BMW's concept car the Vision Next 100. Like its Mini counterpart, the car has two driving modes: Boost Mode is for classic, manual driving, but Ease Mode will make it a self-driving car.

G.M. Says Its Driverless Car Could Be in Fleets by Next Year (New York Times, Jan 12, 2018)

"G.M. said it had submitted a petition to the United States Department of Transportation seeking permission to begin operating fully autonomous cars — without steering wheels or pedals — in a commercial ride-hailing service next year...Self-driving technology “is only going to have a big impact if we can deploy it at large scale,” G.M.’s chief financial officer, Dan Ammann, said in an interview. “We intend to launch a commercial ride-share service at commercial scale in 2019. That will begin in one city and scale up in that city and move to other cities after that.”

Driverless Car Market Watch: Outlook for 2018

"For the auto-industry, 2018 will be a crucial year because the time is running out for most OEMs to ensure that they can weather the changes caused by self-driving cars...The European, Korean and Japanese auto makers need to strongly accelerate their self-driving car activities if they want to survive the coming turmoils of the next decade. General Motors seems to be the only OEM which currently is well positioned in this space....In 2018, we can expect another change in the maturing innovation process: The focus will start to move away from the core technical issues towards the implications for the automobile as a whole (its interior, exterior and structural design, its supporting and sales infrastructure etc.) and towards the business models associated with self-driving cars."

Although automakers have taken the lead from tech companies in the race for Driverless Car patents, tech companies like Google and Tesla first led the way to the future. Digital Trends discusses every company developing self-driving car tech that presented at the recently concluded 2018 Consumer Electronics Show.

BUT...according to a recent New Morning Consult poll American consumers aren’t ready for driverless cars: "Americans aren’t ready to ride in cars that completely drive themselves. In the poll, 43 percent...said autonomous cars are not safe. About one-third (32 percent) said they are safe, but that’s not much more than the 25 percent who said they didn’t know or didn’t care."

Sit back, relax, and enjoy a ride through the history of self-driving cars (Digital Trends)

"Seemingly within just a few years, autonomous cars have gone from science fiction fantasy to reality. But while it seems like this technology emerged virtually overnight, the path to self-driving vehicles has taken a whole lot longer than that." Digital Trends takes us through the history of self-driving cars in 10 milestones..

Photo: In 1925, the inventor Francis Houdina demonstrates a radio-controlled car, which he drives through the streets of Manhattan without anyone at the steering wheel.