There were conflicting opinions at Frankfurt about the prospects for self-driving cars in the near future – even among some of the companies which claim to be leading their development.
Thomas Weber, the board member responsible for research at Daimler and for the development of Mercedes-Benz cars, thinks current legislation and the fear of litigation if one is involved in an accident means their commercial introduction is still some way off.
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But Carlos Ghosn, the CEO and chairman of the Renault-Nissan alliance, is convinced they will be on the market by the end of this decade once the last issues relating to technical reliability have been solved.
“We are currently at the limit of what we can do based on current legislation,” argued Weber. “Now we have to convince the regulators.” Mercedes has a package called Intelligent Drive available for some of its current models This autonomously helps the driver maintain speed and distance to other traffic, avoid dangerous lane-changes and gain maximum vision in all conditions. It also prevents the driver from pulling out into the path of other vehicles at junctions and roundabouts.
But the company has recently demonstrated it is already capable of going much further. Last month a new S-Class covered the 60-odd miles between Mannheim and Pforzheim on country roads completely under its own control. It was a route which replicated that taken by Bertha Benz, the wife of the father of the automobile, 125 years ago. And it used technology available today in some current Mercedes models.
“In this decade a lot will happen. The hardware is well-prepared for the future. The next hurdle is the software. We need software improvements in parallel with discussions with the legislators,” said Weber. “I think it will be easier [to introduce self-driving cars] in Europe than the United States, but we are in discussions around the world.”
Ghosn is sure that by 2020 all problems about autonomous driving will be solved. “It needs very detailed mapping. It has to be reliable and affordable. Some of the solutions depend on our suppliers,” he said. “But there are more accidents from human error than from car failure. There are a lot of accidents we can eliminate.”
Both men agree that self-driving cars are wanted by customers and will inevitably happen one day. “People spend an average of two hours a day in the car, which is lost time,” said Ghosn. “With autonomous driving we can solve the problems of mobility for older people or those who have problems with vision. You can be 100 years old and still sit in the car and drive.”
“There is huge customer demand, especially in the new markets and areas like California. The take-up rate for our Intelligent Drive package is 60%,” said Weber. “With autonomous driving you can check e-mails in a traffic jam, send the car off to park itself at the theatre and even let the car drive home after you have had a couple of glasses of wine.”
