Caution light blinking for autonomous vehicles
TECHNOLOGY
In the past couple of years car companies have been proudly declaring they are close to putting autonomous vehicles on the roads.
Then everyone realised it’s not as simple as just producing a car that can drive itself.
Headline-grabbing incidents involving Tesla and Uber didn’t help, making us aware there are risks and then there is the big question of who is responsible when it does go wrong.
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has stated that drivers of fully automated vehicles should not be held liable for accidents while the technology is in charge.
Laurenz Gerger, policy adviser for motor insurance at the ABI, says: “There will come a point when the drivers of today are effectively just passengers of a vehicle driving itself, and at that stage we want motorists to be reassured they can’t be held liable for an error made by a vehicle or onboard technology.”
Standards set internationally “need to enforce strict requirements to ensure vehicles aren’t rushed on to the roads under the badge of autonomous when they may still need human intervention at short notice”, he says.
For this reason there are calls to clarify what level of technology needs to be in a vehicle for it to be classified as autonomous.
According to vehicle safety company Thatcham Research, a vehicle should not be classified as fully autonomous if a human might need to intervene, for example to try to avoid a collision. The company says: “Until a vehicle can handle emergency scenarios without driver intervention they can only be considered to offer advanced driver assistance. In these vehicles, drivers do remain fully responsible and must be ready to take back control at any moment.”
That could force marketing departments to rethink the message they want to get across. And not just marketing people either.
Last week Tesla boss Elon Musk said: “My guess as to when we would think it is safe for somebody to essentially fall asleep and wake up at their destination? Probably towards the end of next year. I think we will be feature complete, full selfdriving this year meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up and take you all the way to your destination without an intervention.”
Other companies, even those classified as being disruptive, are being more cautious.
While we have yet to see the first car to come from Apple, we know the company has a large team working on what many are referring to as the “iCar”. There is a great deal of anticipation around it, but Apple is not rushing into things.
It has just released a document titled “Our Approach to Automated Driving System Safety” and supplied it to regulators in the US who are looking for those involved in the technology to focus more on perfecting the systems and their integration with other road users and infrastructure.
“We are investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and we are excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation,” says Apple. “In particular, we believe that automated driving systems (ADS) have the promise to greatly enhance the human experience in three key areas: improving road safety, increasing mobility and realising broader societal benefits.”
The document then outlines how Apple is taking a slower and more meticulous approach to automated driving.
Apple says there are three main components to its system, namely Sense, Plan and Act. However, it acknowledges that while it is still in a test phase, the systems can still hand over control to a safety driver if needed.
The document highlights how Apple runs simulations, tests on closed roads and proving grounds and only tests on public roads when all other criteria have been met.
It is easy to get excited about autonomous cars, but the reality is that it is imperative that carmakers and legislators take care to make sure the technology is ready. If governments are going to place responsibility at the door of the car companies if an autonomous car crashes, then we can expect the fullyautonomous car to think twice about whether it’s ready to take the road.
WE KNOW THE COMPANY HAS A LARGE TEAM WORKING ON WHAT MANY ARE REFERRING TO AS THE ‘ICAR’