THE STATE OF THE SELF-DRIVING CAR

THE STATE OF SELF-DRIVING CARS

WITH CURRENT TECHNOLOGY, AUTONOMY IS MOSTLY HAPPENING ON LIMITED-ACCESS HIGHWAYS

Jump in a car with state-of-the-art self-driving technology today and head for the highway, because that’s where you can use it. Once at cruising speed, switch the system on and take your hands off the wheel and your feet off the pedals. Your car will follow the highway, slow down for traffic ahead, and apply the brakes when necessary. It’s impressive—you can drive for hours this way—but it’s not exactly the full autonomy we were promised by now.

Elon Musk of Tesla said last year that he was “extremely confident” that Level 5 autonomy (cars that can drive themselves under all circumstances) “will happen, and I think it will happen very quickly.”

Fast forward a year and Tesla has indeed introduced what it calls “FSD beta 9,” which despite the name (FSD stands for full self-driving) automates more driving tasks but is far from complete control, which would allow the driver to relax in the back seat.

Futurists predicted that by now driverless cars would be routine, but the technology is stalled at Level 2. As of now, hands-free drivers have to stay in their seat, monitoring the situation as the car drives and steers—mostly on limited-access roads. That’s true for systems like General Motors’ Super Cruise, which has migrated from Cadillac luxury car exclusivity to more entry-level models such as the Chevrolet Bolt electric car.

According to Darryll Harrison Jr., a global electric and autonomous vehicle spokesman for GM, the company “continues to enhance Super Cruise with new features and capabilities including automatic lane change and enhanced navigation. ... As we expand Super Cruise across GM’s vehicle portfolio, we continue to look at ways its capabilities can be expanded to cover more scenarios. Our ultimate vision is a system that will enable hands-free transportation in 95% of all driving scenarios.”

“There are still serious technical challenges that need to be solved before fully self-driving vehicles will become real and practical,” says Raj Rajkumar, a professor at Carnegie Mellon. “Just throwing money at the problem will not cut it. A small number of companies that are grounded in reality and spending wisely will survive and do well.”

Analysts agree. “It does seem that autonomous technology is moving forward in stages and tests,” Jessica Caldwell, executive director, Insights, at Edmunds.com, says. “In terms of the road being filled with only self-driving vehicles, it seems like it’s still quite far away. This is due in part to technology and regulations, as well as costs to end users.” Caldwell says the more advanced autonomous systems will, in the short term, be seen in delivery and ride-sharing services. “These will likely be rolled out in test markets, and won’t be ubiquitous across the U.S. anytime soon,” she says, adding that COVID-19 has delayed the timetable because of people needing to readjust to riding in cars with strangers.

In one such operation, announced in July, Ford and its partner Argo AI said they would launch an autonomous service with the Lyft ride-hailing service in Miami and Austin, Texas. The rides, complete with a hands-free “safety driver,” will begin in Miami this year and in Austin in 2022. The plan is to eventually have 1,000 vehicles on the road in six cities, including Washington, D.C.

Complete autonomy “is a much more difficult problem than anticipated, but the hardware and software are slowly maturing,” Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst for e-mobility at Guidehouse Insights, tells RESIDE® . He predicts we will see some limited Level 4 operations (with the car able to take over all functions under certain conditions) gradually become available through the end of the decade. In the meantime, he says, we’ll see increasing sophistication in Level 2 systems such as GM’s Super Cruise and Ford’s BlueCruise, as well as new systems from brands like Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo that add imaging radar, and thermal sensors.

Ford’s system (standard on some models of the F-150 truck and Mustang Mach-E electric car, and an option on others) uses cameras and radar, and can currently be used “on prequalified sections of divided highways called Hands-Free Blue Zones that make up more than 100,000 miles of North American roads.” In other words, there are still some important restrictions.

Kelly Funkhouser, head of connected and automated vehicles at Consumer Reports, says the company’s surveys and research show that people do want self-driving systems. But she says there’s not enough evidence to show that the current technology has significant safety benefits. She praised two specific safety features available on cars today—adaptive cruise control (which can link your car’s progress to the vehicle ahead of it) and lane keeping.

Funkhouser thinks it might be 30 years before the futurists’ vision is realized—and we can summon an empty autonomous car that is preprogrammed to take us to a destination. Cars that allow us to take naps while on the highway—that might be 10 years away.

Opposite page: Tesla is introducing advanced autonomous technology on new models like this Model S Plaid edition. This page, from top: The electric Chevrolet Bolt, shown at top and below, has Super Cruise Level 2 autonomy in its 2022 model.