What to Expect in the Future?
Vehicle autonomy is expected to drastically improve the level of safety for both the passengers on a vehicle and the pedestrians on the road. According to the automated vehicle classification from the SAE International, the current most advanced technology has only reached level three of its five level classification, where at level five a vehicle will demonstrate full autonomy.
When or who will produce a fully autonomous vehicle or a fully self-driving car is still at the speculation stage, however, most experts agree that as early as 2018 or at least by 2020, we will get the opportunity to ride autonomous cars.
Conversely, an autonomous car will
be a vehicle that can handle most of the driving tasks by itself, allowing a human to take control and drive manually at any
given point.
Self-Driven Cars : Contd..
What is on the Horizon?
Currently, a number of companies, including some of the biggest auto
mobile manufacturers are conduct- ng experiments on both autonom-ous and self-driving technologies.
One of the early and well known pioneers in this field is Google, who currently have a fleet of 50 experi-mental self-driving cars. Tesla Motors, who came to the limelight with its advanced electric vehicles, is also a leading developer in autonomous technologies and currently has its popular Autopilot mode,
where the car will take control of the driving function under suitable road conditions from the driver.
A Tesla with the autopilot function can also park itself in tight spaces, and can even be summoned with the command of its human driver. Other popular companies such as Mercedes Benz, General Motors, Nissan, Renault, Toyota, Audi, Volvo, Peugeot and very recently Honda, has also demonstrated its prototype vehicles that can handle various autonomous tasks.
TALKING POINT
Source:insideevs.com