Henry Ford, the father of mass production, revolutionized the transportation industry in the last century equipping individuals with personal mobility vehicle. The automobile industry is now set to undergo a second disruption as self-driving cars are being taken seriously by the industry.
Self-driving cars are computer-run autonomous vehicles that use advanced machine-vision technologies, artificial intelligence and LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) to navigate on the roads by itself. These cars fitted with computer, actuators and controls can assist fully or partially in braking, acceleration and steering. Some characteristics of autonomous car in present cars is seen in the form of self-parking systems.
Autonomous automobiles have the potential to completely change how ground transportation is done. Most of transportation of goods in India is done through trucks to areas which can't be reached by air or train. Autonomous trucks will enable a highly efficient manner of transporting goods. The drivers will not have to stop to sleep or eat. Japan's New Energy and Transport system has successfully implemented an autonomous trucking system in which a convoy of trucks is used and only one driver needed in lead truck. When the first truck brakes, all other trucks brake.
Cars running on the streets will be highly synchronized and maintain a very less distance between; cars at back brake/ accelerate automatically when the front car does so. It is estimated that use of autonomous cars will lead to reduced accident deaths by 40000 to 140000 annually from 2025.
According to McKinsey's most disruptive technology report, self driving automobiles are expected to generate business of $200 billion to $1.9 trillion by 2025 in the economy with value being generated from time freed up for the driver passenger and fuel efficiency resulting from smooth braking and accelerating. The report estimates that about 20-30% of total cars will be autonomous or semi-autonomous.
Toyota Prius modified for Google's self-driving car has been running on the streets of Nevada and California and has logged more than 5,00,000 miles with just one human-caused accidents. Automobile manufacturers, Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Chrysler, Toyota and Volvo, are also working on developing autonomous vehicles.
The adoption of self-driving automobiles largely depends on the law regulations by government. There may be some difficult questions to answer such as whose liability it is in events of accident death or how the car would take the decision in "life and death" events. For example, in whose favor the car would take decision in case the life of pedestrian as well as passenger is in danger.
As the idea of self-driving automobiles gains ground, perhaps its time for us to make ourselves comfortable with the idea to drive with driverless cars on streets!
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