Amid the glitz and glamour of the 2015 Geneva Auto Show, European auto supplier group CLEPA proclaimed its members would have a part to play in the autonomous game.
According to Just-Auto, group CEO Paul Schockmel said that the move toward autonomous driving was gaining steam, and that suppliers would be a huge part of the movement:
This is the story which is not only changing cars, but the entire automotive industry and [is] a societal change. I am very much focussing on this because I feel for our members, we have to follow this very strongly and we see huge business opportunities. There will also be challenges with new players coming in – I see this in a positive way because there are opportunities.
Already, Volvo is experimenting with autonomous technology through a plan to introduce 100 vehicles so-equipped to its home city of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2017. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom government approved measures to allow driverless testing on public roads, providing funding for tests in Greenwich, Bristol, Milton Keynes and Coventry. The government also is developing certification standards for autonomous vehicles.
Still waiting for the skeptics to redefine the standard of “real” autonomous car so that they won’t be wrong soon.
Unsurprisingly, the amount of “never” happens has been reduced to near zero. Will we ever see any concessions of defeat?
The terminology is still kind of loose. There is the type that is like an autopilot where a human needs to be there to take over when it’s in a situation it can’t handle. The other type is the fully autonomous that never needs to have a human at the controls and can handle anything. The autopilot type is relatively easy and already here. The human-free fully autonomous type is further out, but coming.
New tech from IBM and NVIDIA looks promising. I just received a new low cost LIDAR unit that’s pretty cool, but it’s limited to about 40′. Still working on the software – had to write our own libraries to get it to work on our hardware.
One reason I am reassured is your slow change from pessimism to optimism.
The reason for my post is to catch the guys who want to play the same game they played on the flying car topic even before they go there. Interestingly, aviation still moves at a glacial pace. The first civilian tilt rotor is being shown today and is targeted for 2017 so expect deliveries in 2019 at soonest. The roadable aircraft likely about the same time.
Eventually some hacker is going to reprogram a vehicle to apply full throttle when it senses a pedestrian less than 10 feet away.
That will put the whole kibosh on this autonomous driving nonsense.
You sir are ‘pure’ entertainment, full stop.
Yeah, just like the banks, planes, lawn mowers…oh, wait…
What about a bio-hacker creating a virus that infects NYC rats, alters their brains, and causes them to seek out and attack anything bearing the scent of Axe body spray?