What do the autonomous car levels mean?

TO help define what a ‘driverless car’ can do, there are five key stages of automation.

LEVEL 1 automation refers to technologies such as adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assistance and autonomous emergency braking, where the driver and onboard electronics share control of the vehicle.

LEVEL 2 autonomous technology can assume full control of the throttle, steering and brakes in controlled circumstances, such as motorway driving or parking. The driver must monitor the system at all times and be ready to regain control.

LEVEL 3 AND 4-capable vehicles will allow “conditional” and “high” automation respectively on dedicated stretches of motorway, where the car can assume complete control of all of its functions without the driver’s supervision.

A LEVEL 3 system would expect the driver to reassume control of the car in certain circumstances, whereas a Level 4 system will be able to respond to incidents independently in all cases.

LEVEL 5 autonomy means the system could drive a vehicle entirely on its own, in both motorway and city environments without input from the driver at any time. Cars will be wirelessly connected to one another and will communicate with the road infrastructure to make decisions on traffic and journey times.

The technology already exists to make this happen in Britain, and trials are continuing in order to make it safe enough to be offered to customers.

“Car makers have found autonomous technology hard to develop, and very expensive. Some have scaled back their efforts to focus money elsewhere, such as on better, more practical EVs” STEVE FOWLER

Editor-in-chief