Non-drivers to embrace automated cars

A flood of elderly, infirm and even blind drivers could return to the world’s roads thanks to new autonomous driving technology, Renault-Nissan’s boss claimed at the Frankfurt motor show.

While other car company executives spent the show justifying the next-generation technology, Carlos Ghosn insisted it would expand the new car market by including a new group of buyers as old as 100.

“People look at the parts of autonomous driving that haven’t been solved, but there are opportunities that we haven’t scratched,” Mr Ghosn said.

“If people hit 70 or 80 or even 100 years old they can’t drive anymore because they are too old to drive. These people have their licenses taken away and can’t drive.

“This technology will expand the new-car market up to the 90- to 100-year range or even more.”

Mr Ghosn claimed that every second person born today could live beyond 100 and the perfection and acceptance of autonomous driving technology could be a boon to car-makers.

Research from the US Census Bureau claims the average life expectancy in the United States will be in the mid-80s by 2050, with more than 5.3 million Americans expected to live beyond 100 by 2100. The United Nations cited a life expectancy of between 100 and 106 for developed countries by 2300.

“It’s not just at the older end. There is no reason why autonomous driving can’t also expand it to lower ages, before people get their licenses today,” Mr Ghosn insisted.

“Another point is that a lot of people spend two hours a day in a car, on average, and that means a lot of people spend a lot more than two hours in a car. If you can give that time back to them for phone calls or work or relaxing, that’s a very valuable piece of time.”

Renault-Nissan has a strong leg-up in autonomous driving technology, sharing development and hardware with industry leader, Daimler. Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz brand has just sent it autonomously driven S 500 INTELLIGENT DRIVE research vehicle more than 100km from Mannheim to Pforzheim in Germany to replicate the first journey by car 125 years ago.

It made the journey, with a Daimler engineer aboard, through some of the most heavily trafficked roads in Germany with technology that largely exists on production or near-production Mercedes-Benzes today – and technology available to the Renault, Nissan and Infiniti brands.

“The S 500 INTELLIGENT DRIVE uses sensors that are also available in the production version of the S-Class – just more of them. The car uses these to capture massive amounts of data in traffic. It’s as if the car is permanently playing speed chess, but in milliseconds and with dozens of opponents at the same time.”

“We want to be the first to put further autonomous driving functions into series production,” Daimler Board Member for Group Research and Head of Development for Mercedes-Benz cars, Dr Thomas Weber, said.

“My personal estimate is that we will be driving autonomously in a Mercedes before the end of the decade.”

The problems for all car-makers are regulation and liability – not technology. Throughout the world, the only places with laws that allow autonomous driving on public roads are in California, Nevada and Florida, though the European Union has pending legislation.

And Carlos Ghosn’s ambitions have received a legislative leg up from French President, Francois Hollande, who last week announced a 10-year plan to revive France’s car industry through new technologies, specifically including autonomous driving cars.

Besides convenience and industrial promotion, though, Mr Ghosn insists autonomous cars will reduce road accidents and fatalities.

“Most accidents come from human error and experience shows there are less errors in computers and machines than humans. These computers never lose focus or fall asleep,” he said.

“This uses alliance technology modules and some of these modules are already in our cars. Infiniti has a lot of these modules but little by little they will be in smaller cars.

“All the problems of driving an autonomous driving car will be solved. Autonomous driving requires very detailed mapping. The car needs to make a difference between a red light and a green light, or a pedestrian that is waiting or one that is crossing the road.

“We know the solutions for all of these and we want to make sure they are reliable and affordable. We see a lot of advantages and so we will see a big push,” Mr Ghosn insisted.

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