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NEWS
Autonomous cars due sooner than we think
The commitment by many car-makers to self-driving technology is bringing driverless cars closer by the minuteAmerica's Boston Consulting Group believes self-driving cars will be on crowded city streets by 2022 and that the concept could grow into a US$42 billion market as soon as 2025. Come 2035, and driverless cars could account for as much as a quarter of worldwide sales.
These predictions might sound a bit fanciful at first read, but when you look at the increasing number of car-makers investing in development of vehicles that don't need a driver, the perception shifts.
German car-makers Mercedes-Benz and Audi are already well advanced on self-driving cars, with the most recent stunt by Audi, in which an A7 model took the sans-driver trip, with journalists aboard, from California's Silicon Valley to Las Vegas, a clear indicator of how close the technology actually is.
The just-announced collaboration between NASA and Nissan in autonomous vehicle development (Nissan expects to have city-compatible driverless cars ready by around 2020), the unveiling by Mercedes-Benz of its F015 driverless car in Las Vegas, the same company's already-available (in some markets) of a partially self-driving model (on freeways) and Cadillac's announcement late last year that it will offer hands-free highway driving technology within two years, are all pointers to where the industry is heading.
As the Boston Consulting Group's Detroit managing director Xavier Mosquet told Automotive News recently, "Many people don't realize how far along some of these technologies are. Even more surprising, consumer interest and the production costs will make autonomous vehicles highly attractive to both carmakers and their customers."
The statistics make a compelling case for the viability of driverless cars. With as many as nine billion people expected to live in urban areas in the next 25 years, the pressures on developing workable private transportation system are mounting.
But will autonomous cars suck the enjoyment out of driving?
Considering that the idea of taking the driver out of the equation stems from a desire to minimise the stress and/or boredom of driving when surrounded by heavy traffic that is already dictating what the driver actually does anyway, there seems a good chance the technology could actually enhance the experience.
Navigating congested in-city streets could be less stressful, while long, high-speed freeways could be a lot less fatiguing and, potentially, a lot safer. The real driving could be reserved for shorter distances over less populated roads.
Whatever the case, people are preparing themselves: According to the Boston Consulting Group, consumers are readying themselves for the prospect of driverless cars, with more than half the respondents to a 2014 survey saying they expect to buy a partially autonomous car within five years or so, and 44 per cent expecting to buy a fully-autonomous car within 10 years.
Forget the ability to fly, the bubble roofs and the jet engines that were once predicted for the cars of the future. The self-driving car is about the only thing predicted by the futurologists that is going to come true.
Even then, however, don't expect autonomous SUVs to ferry the family up the Birdsville Track right away...
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Written byCarsales Staff
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