From cubed two-seaters to silver luxury rides
Prototypes of driverless vehicles are being tested in jurisdictions including California, Nevada and the U.K. While most are of the cubed two-seater variety, an automated silver Mercedes-Benz turned heads last week as it cruised the streets of San Francisco for a photo shoot.
Images taken by passersby couldn’t confirm that the car was actually fully autonomous, or if the F015 Luxury in Motion had been steering itself while a human manned the navigation panel. Mercedes-Benz Like other automakers, Mercedes is moving incrementally toward the development of self-driving autos. It has demonstrated vehicles capable of 99 per cent autonomous operation and offers models commercially that are 70 per cent autonomous, covering functions such as braking and acceleration. Audi Volkswagen’s luxury brand has demonstrated a number of piloted driving or semi-autonomous vehicles using a laser scanner, video cameras, and radar and ultrasound sensors to navigate.
In January, journalists were given stints behind the wheel during a piloted driving test run from Silicon Valley to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas BMW Rounding out the big three German luxury automakers, BMW has demonstrated a 6 Series that can make turns, brake and park itself. Tesla Motors The California-based electric-car maker in October unveiled a Model S that can navigate between lanes, detect pedestrians, conform to the speed limit and pull into a garage. Tesla says it intends to have cars that can “drive from highway onramp to highway off-ramp” in 2015. Nissan The Japanese company is working on a range of AVs that it says will be for sale sometime between 2020 and 2025. Cadillac
The General Motors division is promising a “super cruise” technology in its 2017 models. The technology will not only allow a computer to control the car, but will also feature a “vehicle-to-vehicle technology.” It will allow Cadillacs to communicate with other vehicles and to predict, and avoid, highway hazards. Google The American tech giant has been an early proponent of automated driving, starting with adaption of existing vehicles. Late last year, Google displayed a twoseat, low-speed (40 km/h) electric prototype built for the company in Detroit.
Google conducted a pilot project at the NASA Ames Research Center and has announced and an additional public pilot using 100 to 200 prototypes that is anticipated to start in 2015 or 2016 in California. With a file from Dana Flavelle