Part 2 - Are we there yet?

What I am focusing on this week is an understanding of the levels of development and where we are at this point and, hopefully, a bit of a road map to how we get to a fully automated driverless world.

To know where we are in relation to total automation we need to look at the levels involved in getting there, then we can start to gauge where manufacturers are in their production vehicles at this point in time.

Up until recent years all vehicles were at Level 0, that is the driver totally in control of the vehicle including braking, steering and throttle at all times.

Level 1 is the start of Automation, where control functions start to appear such as stability control, pre-charged brakes, where the vehicle automatically assists with braking to enable the driver to regain control of the vehicle or stop faster than possible by acting alone.

In the previous article I gave an overview of what is to come and a taste of what is out there now just to whet your appetite. This is an amazing technology and a great time to be alive and be a part of it.

Level 2 involves the automation of at least two primary control functions designed to work in unison to relieve the driver of control of those functions. An example of combined functions enabling a Level 2 system is adaptive cruise control in combination with lane centering.

Level 3 enables the driver to cede full control of all safety-critical functions under certain traffic or environmental conditions and in those conditions to rely heavily on the vehicle to monitor for changes in those conditions requiring transition back to driver control. The driver is expected to be available for occasional control, but with sufficiently comfortable transition time. The Google car is an example of limited self-driving automation.

Level 4 is designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip. Such a design anticipates that the driver will provide destination or navigation input, but is not expected to be available for control at any time during the trip. This includes both occupied and unoccupied vehicles.

These definitions are paraphrased from the From US department of Transport document and the full text is here.

In recent years, all new cars sold (at least in Australia) have to have antilock braking systems (ABS), Electronic Stability Control (ESC). This is in addition to multiple airbags and a swathe of other safety features.

I know from first-hand experience how well these work as my wife and I were driving north along the coastal road in Western Australia, several hundred Kilometres north of Perth in the middle of nowhere doing a speed that we will say was within the limit of 110KPH (65 MPH for our less worldly American friends).I was driving my wife’s’(then) new Yaris sedan (a VIOS to our Asian readers) when a group of very large feathered emus decided that running out in front of a car travelling at high speed was a great idea. I saw them and reacted by hitting the brake, thinking at the same time that I didn’t have a prayer of stopping. To my amazement the car stopped, without screaming burning rubber about a hands breath from the nearest emu which by the way gave me the evilest look of distain before sauntering off. Given that these birds are about two metres tall with most of their body higher than the cars bonnet, would have meant that if we hadn’t stopped we would have been sharing the front seat and none of us would have been happy.

So ABS plus ESC meant both us and the emus got to go home shaken but alive. Score one for technology. This is Level 1 technology

As you will be well aware, new innovation in cars starts at the high end models, but these days it filters down to the cheaper cars very quickly so we now have all new cars with these features and another drop in the collision rate.

Newer features out now on even middle of the range cars include lane centering that keep the car in the lane without driver action, adaptive cruise control where the car automatically brakes when it senses a possible collision or slower vehicle ahead and auto lane change where it sense cars nearby and when the indictor is on automatically changes lane when it is safe to do so. This is Level 2 technology.

Mercedes Benz Intelligent Drive has many level 3 features as the video below explains.

Impressive stuff, even more so when you consider that video is from 2013!

Today many manufacturers have this level of sophistication.

Just considering the safety factors alone makes this an exciting process.

Volvo states that no one should be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo by 2020, presumably they are discounting heart attacks and total stupidity but I digress.

Now we know that some companies are at level 2 and some at level 3 but what are they working on now?

Transition to the future.

What are manufacturers planning?

In the higher end of the market they are well ahead with Mercedes having the concept F105 on the road and the new E class and S series have many features needed for fully autonomous cars

BMW appears to have a car on the road, driving autonomously about 70% of the time but they don’t call it that and don’t appear to be pushing it. A recent article here shows where they’re at, and from my view it’s a long way down the track already but from a company that’s sell a driving experience, it puts itself in a difficult position.

 Tesla sees their fully autonomous car on the road by 2020 but some statements seem to have that happening earlier.

Volvo is also there in a big way with 100 automated cars on the road next year (2017) in customers hands (well sort off as they won't need hands on).

In the lower cost cars we also have a lot of activity.

Toyota plans to have an autonomous car on the road by 2020 in time for the Tokyo Olympics.

Ford appears to be a little behind the others but given their resources they could leap forward. According to a Forbes article Ford has a ten year program started in 2015 and has not released a timeline for production autonomous vehicles.

Nissan says it will have one on the road by 2020

There are many other manufacturers in the field and it looks like it’s starting to really hot up, primarily because they can see that if they aren’t in the market then they won’t be in the industry for long.

This very impetus to be first will be a driving force that will accelerate this market penetration far faster than most people believe possible.

Another complicating factor and driving force is companies like Google, Uber and Lyft who are not manufacturers in their own right but have a huge market for these vehicles, and very deep pockets to make it happen.

Ok so that’s it for this week.

Now that we have the basics down and the technology covered, we need to start looking at the issues that this transformation will have on society.

To give you some idea of the impact of technological change on society, although in a different time and under a different social structure, have a look at this short video of the industrial revolution.

The effect on our society of autonomous vehicles will be different to that but it will be as disruptive to many areas of our industries.