Reality of self-drive vehicles
Ten years ago, when Nissan announced it was setting out to build vehicle technologies that would move mobility towards a zero-emission, zero-fatality future, people were sceptical about this pioneering approach.
Today, there’s not a single motor vehicle manufacturer which hasn’t got involved in electric vehicle (EV) research and other mobility solutions.
The buzzword is autonomous driving, cars that will drive themselves – with all the doubts that involves. The truth of the matter is that most of the technology needed to achieve this autonomous reality is already available.
In, fact it’s already been incorporated in the vehicles you drive – in some cases as long ago as 15 years.
Take ABS, intelligent cruise control, steer-by-wire, monitors that provide 360-degree vision, forward emergency braking; they were all invented to make driving more pleasurable and safer – instilling confidence in the driver.
They weren’t invented so that cars can drive themselves, but that’s what happens when you put the technologies together; the cameras and the radar and the sonar in the cars and start exploring the possibilities.
Cars had not changed much until about 10 years ago; the basic power plant was still the internal combustion engine, with all the attendant by-products – environmental and noise pollution, most of all. The advent of the digital revolution changed all that and continues to do so today, exponentially.
Today, we look at the development of the car in a three-pronged approach known as intelligent mobility, premised on it becoming effectively the smartphone of mobility – with the underlying goal of no impact on the environment and absolute safety for the driver and the passengers. The bottom line is that we are not a car company anymore.
The first prong, we call intelligent driving, effectively harnessing technology to make the drive safer. Everyone obsesses about self-driving and the so-called robo-taxis which, we believe, will happen – but not everywhere.
There will be some applications for autonomous vehicles, especially with companies like Google and Uber creating point-to-point transport solutions in designated areas and parts of road networks.
But we also believe that people still enjoy driving and still have a lot of interest having ownership of a car.
The technology just makes it that much safer.
We were the first to launch intelligent cruise control, which basically allows you to drive on the highway and the car keeps the same distance from the car in front of you.
Then there’s Pro-Pilot, a single lane technology that is hands-on and eyes-on but effectively keeps the car in its lane on the highway. We are the biggest sellers of this technology.
The next evolution will be multilane hands off, eyes on technology which will allow you to drive on a highway without touching the steering wheel, using all the existing technologies that are currently available.
Already we are working on brain-to-vehicle technology where our engineers are working on the half-second gap between the driver seeing something and reacting to create predictive driving based on how you have reacted before to create an even more responsive and intuitive experience.
We are not introducing this technology to make autonomous driving a reality, but to make driving safer and more enjoyable.
The truth is, most customers do not actually realise the full extent of the technologies they already have in the cars they own – or the fact that they have already adopted them as the norm, like electronic braking and power steering. They think technology and autonomous driving just make everything boring. In fact, the opposite is true.
The second prong of our development is intelligent power, looking away from the traditional engine to electric power plants.
The technology is still very young, but already we are making huge inroads into the range anxieties of drivers. Very soon, electric vehicles will have ranges of 600km between battery charges.
The move started with a concern for the environment and the quest for zero emission, which we want, as do governments and cities, especially. But the other more compelling reason is that electric cars are incredible to drive.
In the old days, you needed to get a sports car if you wanted a nippy vehicle. These days, with the torque available from the electric power plant, immediately on demand, acceleration and overtaking are no longer an issue at all. In fact, we have found that as much as 80% of the people who drive electric don’t want to go back to the noise and lack of power of the traditional engine.
Not all the world will go electric. The cost is still relatively high and it’s dependent upon the charging infrastructure.
EV doesn’t work for each and every market. We recognised this and developed e-power, a power plant that has a traditional engine but not to power the car like a hybrid, but instead to keep the batteries charged throughout, leaving the electric engine to drive the car – to ensure that the driver always has the EV experience; the power, the fuel efficiencies and the lower emissions of a hybrid.
Our final leg is intelligent integration, effectively the last frontier of mobility and without a doubt, the most exciting prospect.
Now, most of the premium vehicles on the market offer Android or Apple connectivity with Wi-Fi.
This technology is permeating down to the other segments so, eventually, all cars will effectively be iPhones on wheels.
When you combine this with the looming release of 5G, the possibilities for artificial intelligence are endless – the car will be able to communicate seamlessly to everything around you; cars, traffic control systems.
Cars will be able to communicate with parking lots in terms of where free parking spaces are available while you are en route and reserve them ahead of your arrival as one example.
The truth of the matter is that change is inevitable.
It takes time, but when we reach that inflection point, the momentum towards EV will be both unstoppable and dramatic. We only need to look at the precipitous decline in the demand for diesel engines to see how true this is.