DRIVERLESS VEHICLES Ready to Sell By 2020 Carmakers Claim | 4.5 Million on US Roads By 2035

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Fri Jun 10, 2016, 10:54 AM - Edit history (1)

There's no denying that autonomous cars are developing at a rapid pace. For starters, automakers and tech companies continue to spend millions of dollars in the technology. Lawmakers are doing the best they can to quickly come up with reasonable regulations and consumers are getting more comfortable with surrendering the wheel to robots. These are just some of the reasons why IHS Automotive predicts there will be over 21 million autonomous vehicles on roads globally by the year 2035.
In the shorter term, IHS Automotive says total global sales of autonomous vehicles should reach 600,000 units by the end of 2025. After that, the autonomous tech is expected to grow substantially to a whopping 21 million by 2035.

IHS Automotive cites the rapid pace at which automakers and tech companies are investing in self-driving technology. Google, for example, recently announced it will build a new self-driving technology development center outside of Detroit, Mich., while Uber is expanding its autonomous testing facility in Pittsburgh, Pa. And almost every major automaker is furiously working to stay ahead of the autonomous game, with some claiming to have fully-autonomous vehicles ready to sell by 2020.

Meanwhile, state and federal lawmakers in the U.S. face persistent pressure from automakers and tech companies to author self-driving regulations sooner rather than later.

That said, IHS Automotive expects the U.S. to overcome regulatory obstacles quicker than other countries, which should make America the first country to offer self-driving cars to the public. The study predicts 4.5 million autonomous vehicles will be on U.S. roads by 2035.

China is expected to sell 5.7 million self-driving cars by 2035, while Western Europe should have 1.2 million units out by that time.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/connectedcar/study-says-21-million-autonomous-cars-will-be-sold-by-2035/ar-AAgOsIf?ocid=spartandhpip



- Singapore, Autonomous University Transport Shuttle Vehicle

[chapdrum]

1. What utter

crap.

[appalachiablue]

2. Please elaborate on this coming 'tech marvel' if interested. ~

- SELF DRIVING VOLVO CX90 -- VOLVO "DRIVE ME LONDON" COMING 2017

"Volvo to Test Self-Driving Cars on London's Roads Next Year", Swedish Carmaker Plans to Run Driverless Vehicles on Public Roads Starting with Small Number of Semi-Autonomous Cars in 2017, the Guardian, April 27, 2016.

Volvo is set to run self-driving versions of its family 4x4s on roads around London next year as the motor industry’s trial of autonomous vehicles accelerates. While self-driving pods and shuttles were already due to operate on pavements in Greenwich and Milton Keynes this summer, the Swedish carmaker is planning to test autonomous vehicles on public roads in the capital from 2017. Volvo’s UK test, called "Drive Me London", will go a step further than other programmes by using real families driving autonomous cars on public roads. The manufacturer has conducted tests with the same vehicles in Gothenburg since 2014, and plans a parallel public trial in the Swedish city next year.

The cars will record data from everyday users to help develop driverless cars for real-world conditions. It hopes to start the trials in early 2017 with a limited number of semi-autonomous cars, before placing up to 100 fully autonomous vehicles on the streets in 2018, in what the carmaker claims will be the most extensive public rollout of the technology in Britain. Driverless technology will massively reduce the number of car accidents, cut congestion on roads and save time for motorists, Volvo says. Håkan Samuelsson, its president and chief executive, said: “Autonomous driving represents a leap forward in car safety. The sooner AD cars are on the roads, the sooner lives will start being saved.”

Britain is hoping to be at the forefront of autonomous driving, partly due to a legal loophole. The UK is one of the European countries not to have ratified the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic that stipulates a driver must be in the front seat of a car. However, the government is still working on its own regulation to keep pace with changing technology. Samuelsson said governments around the world needed to put in place legislation and infrastructure to let self-driving cars take to the streets as soon as possible. “The car industry cannot do it all by itself. We need governmental help,” he said.

The Thatcham Research centre will work alongside Volvo in the UK trials. Thatcham’s chief executive, Peter Shaw, said manufacturers were expecting to produce highly autonomous vehicles that would allow drivers to hand over control for parts of journeys by early next decade, bringing major safety benefits...,” he said...Safety campaigners in Brussels warned that Europe needed to revise its system of approving new cars to avoid being left behind by technological advances, by introducing “driving tests” for automated and fully autonomous vehicles. In a report published on Tuesday, the European transport safety council (ETSC) said the EU was a long way from addressing the issues that self-driving cars would bring.
Antonio Avenoso, the ETSC executive director, said: “Automated vehicles are already starting to appear on Europe’s roads, but regulators are still stuck in the slow lane. It is crucial that we get a much greater understanding of what the real world safety benefits would be, and what new risks would be introduced, before these vehicles are put on sale.“

More, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/27/volvo-test-self-driving-cars-london-2017

Volvo Leads the Way in China
http://www.volvocars.com/intl/about/our-innovation-brands/intellisafe/intellisafe-autopilot/news/volvos-self-driving-vision-applauded

[elljay]

3. I have a question no one seems to ask

What ethics are programmed into the vehicle?

Let me give an example - you are driving lawfully when a small child runs in front of your car. You cannot avoid an accident no matter what you do. You have 3 options:

1. Hit the child. The child is likely to die, but you and your passengers will be safe.
2. Swerve right and hit a very large tree. The child will live, but you and your passengers will be critically injured or killed.
3. Swerve left and hit another car. The child may live, depending upon where the cars skid after the accident. You and the people in your and the other car risk critical injury or being killed.

I don't know what I would do or what I should do, but each and every one of us would have to make a split second decision if we were in that situation. Well, so would a driverless car. However, we wouldn't know what decision the car would make or whether it is the decision we would have chosen. What if the car "decides" that it is better to kill you and your passengers than the child who caused the accident but you would have killed the child and saved the people in your car? I'm sure there are many such ethical decisions that need to be programmed. Do we abrogate moral responsibility when we allow the car to determine life or death?

Apologies for waxing philisophical, but it IS Friday night!