The roadmap and timeline to the fully autonomous vehicle remains far from clear. Renault has, helpfully, provided a little clarity on its strategy to introduce vehicles with some autonomous control capability by 2020.
Active safety and connectivity – both the vehicle’s and the individual’s – are an area of technological progress that provides plenty of uncertainties, especially on the speed of innovation to market. Carlos Ghosn put a stake in the ground last year when he said that Nissan will be ready with multiple, commercially-viable autonomous drive vehicles by 2020.
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US: Nissan targets autonomous drive to market by 2020
There’s always the question of how this technology will evolve, how it will look in the market. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) that are here today point some of the way and there are cars on the market already that allow limited autonomous control in certain situations (like parallel parking, or traffic jam assist).
How does the technology roadmap look? Past experience would say that we’ll see a gradual extension of advanced technologies, expensive to begin with, but with unit costs declining over time as they cascade down to mass market segments and volumes rise.
Dual control is something else we’re starting to hear more about. Cars will come with a degree of autonomous control alongside driver control. It’s that ‘degree’ of autonomous control that will be shifting, gradually. In certain situations, you will be able to hit a button and read your newspaper. But the fully autonomous car, all situations, driver redundant – that is much further away from real application. As Tesla‘s Elon Musk has remarked, it’s that last bit that enables you to safely do away with the human element in all situations that will be difficult for engineers to square off completely. The human element is actually quite sophisticated in terms of processing information quickly to make decisions and a human eye with a brain can interpret in a way that a machine cannot. Similarly, the fully safe road traffic environment vision will take time to achieve as the parc will be populated by a mix of automated and human controlled vehicles. To come back to today, you might have a clever collision avoidance system on your car, but that doesn’t stop some other idiot who does not have it giving you a rear ender.
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By GlobalDataSo, back to Mr Ghosn. What’s he really got in mind that could actually be on the market by 2020? We now have some insight into that. Renault has said that it wants a ZOE-based car brought to market by 2020 able to offer autonomous control in certain ‘clearly defined situations’. There are two: you will be able to leave it to find a parking place (in car parks set up with the relevant tech) and you will be able to hand over control in heavy traffic at low speed. That sounds pretty good but it’s not a million miles away from where we are now.
There is plenty of further work to do before you dial up a driverless pod to your front door and go to sleep in the back; people will still have to learn to drive in the 2020s. The 2030s though? That’s probably when driving will start to seem a bit old-fashioned and unnecessary.
FRANCE: Renault sheds some light on autonomous car by 2020 plans
How would Next Two work in practice in 2020? Renault provides some exampes/scenarios of how it could look:
Let’s fast-forward into a world of mobility in the future on board NEXT TWO. These two examples will provide a foretaste.
Getting to the meeting on time
It’s mid-afternoon and sales representative Juliette receives a text message on her smartphone. It is her electronic mobility assistant with an alert for her: if she wants to be on time for her off-site meeting, she should leave at 4pm. The message states that the journey will take 43 minutes and that the route will include a 20-minute congested trunk road section where delegated driving will be permitted.
Juliette launches the Automated Valet Parking app on her smartphone, commanding her NEXT TWO to pick her up outside the building at 4pm, completely autonomously. If Juliette had wanted to, and thanks to a camera located next to the rear-view mirror, she could have switched her smartphone display to ‘car view’ for a real-time view of what the car itself is seeing as it returns to her. At 4pm on the dot, Juliette gets to the pick-up point where NEXT TWO has been waiting for her for a few minutes already.
As Juliette walks up to the vehicle, NEXT TWO identifies her as the driver, unlocks the doors and adjusts the driving position to welcome her with her preferred settings: the reach and rake of the seat, mirror alignment, favourite radio station. Juliette gets in, switches on and follows the instructions on NEXT TWO’s navigation screen and head-up display.
A short while later, as the vehicle enters a delegated driving zone, NEXT TWO asks Juliette if she would like to hand over control. She accepts, confirming it with the ‘autonomous drive’ command. The head-up display changes to blue to show that the vehicle is now in autonomous mode, and the seat moves to its comfort settings. Juliette is able to finalise preparations for her meeting, on the move and in complete safety. She calls up her working documentation in an instant, along with the multimedia content stored on the Cloud. She takes the opportunity of putting in a quick video-conference call to one of her Japanese colleagues to fine-tune the last few elements in her sales pitch.
A few minutes later the navigation system flags up moving roadworks along her intended route, lengthening the journey 45 minutes beyond the time originally predicted. Juliette is in danger of being late for her meeting. Here, Juliette has a choice: either she continues her journey as originally planned and warns her customer using the video-conference function, or else she switches to an alternative means of transport in order to arrive on time. Juliette chooses the second option and launches the dedicated multimodal mobility app.
This offers three different alternatives on the touchscreen. Juliette selects the one which recommends parking in a nearby car park and continuing the journey on the underground system. With the voice command ‘buy’, she reserves a space in the car park and downloads an e-ticket for the underground to her smartphone.
NEXT TWO now begins to guide her to the car park, leaving the delegated driving zone. Juliette comes out of the comfort position and resumes control of the vehicle. When she gets to the car park she activates the Automated Valet Parking function. The car will park all by itself in the space which the car park administrator had allocated to it as soon as Juliette’s request came in a few minutes earlier. While this is happening, she is heading for the station on foot. She will be on time for her meeting!
Returning home
At the end of her day, Juliette is heading back home after having picked up her daughter Samantha from school. She reaches another delegated driving zone and decides to leave the driving to NEXT TWO.
As they pass alongside an advertising hoarding, NEXT TWO’s central display alerts Juliette to a concert by her favourite artist. Persuaded, Juliette decides to buy two tickets on the spot. She will receive these automatically on her smartphone, which is paired with the vehicle.
Further along her route, but still in the delegated driving zone, NEXT TWO signals that one of Juliette’s girlfriends is in the vicinity. Juliette calls her in ‘hands free’ mode and sees her friend’s face appear on the screen. During the conversation, the friend shares a photo with her and, with a simple move of her hand, Juliette transfers the picture to the tablet computer belonging to her daughter, sitting alongside her in the car. She hangs up and decides to take advantage of the delegated driving free time to relax and launches the ‘Health & Wellbeing’ app. The seat immediately begins its massage function and the lighting, sound and scent environments within the cabin tune in to this moment of relaxation.
The vehicle’s route takes it close to a stately home, something which is immediately communicated to Juliette via the navigation screen, along with all the tourist information relating to this attraction. After arriving at her destination, Juliette launches the Automated Valet Parking function. NEXT TWO steers itself towards the garage as Juliette and her daughter Samantha calmly return to the house.
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