Two roads to the same place: 2016 and the future of self-driving cars

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Two roads to the same place: 2016 and the future of self-driving cars

2016 was something of a watershed for autonomous vehicles.

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/12/two-roads-to-the-same-place-2016-and-the-future-of-self-driving-cars/

JONATHAN M. GITLIN | 12/23/2016, 11:43 AM

The self-driving car reached something of a watershed in 2016. All of a sudden, it seems we're right on the threshold of autonomous vehicles transforming our transportation. I'd ask any engineer in 2015 when they thought we'd have full (i.e., SAE level 5) self-driving vehicles and the answer was always "ooh, that's another 20-30 years away." Fast forward a year, and all of a sudden that target has moved: BMW, Intel, Mobileye, Uber, Volvo, Ford, Delphi, and others have all set 2021 (or earlier in the case of Delphi) as the year by which steering wheels become optional.

The big breakthrough is down to the use of machine learning and deep neural networks, a field that has come along leaps and bounds in a relatively short space of time. For example, Nvidia will sell OEMs and tier one suppliers an open AI platform for automotive uses that leverages the company's GPUs and machine learning—tech that it ably demonstrated with its BB-8 technology demonstrator:

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If we cast our crystal ball further out—20 or 30 years into the future—those different paths are all headed to the same place, and it's one where humans driving themselves will be in a distinct minority. Policy makers are salivating at the life-saving potential of autonomous vehicles; NHTSA blames human error for 94 percent of all crashes, and more than 35,000 people have been killed on US roads this year. It's not hard to imagine that restrictions on human drivers will start to appear, first on highways (like HOV lanes), and I can easily imagine ideas similar to London's congestion charge being used to discourage humans from driving themselves in cities.

"I don't think new vehicle ownership will even exist by then," Jeremey McCool, CEO of HEVO Power (a company that makes wireless charging systems for vehicles) told me recently. "Manufacturers will own the assets, and they'll be able to overcome the problems they're having with cost by having people pay premiums for a monthly service. That'll probably eliminate Lyft and Uber, because they're just a middle facilitator at that point."

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