Self-driving cars will encourage vehicle ownership rather than a universal automated taxi service.
Around this office, I’m widely regarded as a manufacturing cynic. I prefer to think of myself as a manufacturing skeptic.
It’s fairly common for me to surprise the younger writers in this operation with the actual origin of what they think is a major new innovation. Gyroscopically balanced two-wheel car? Ford Gyron, 1961. First 200 mile-per-hour lap in NASCAR? Buddy Baker, 1970. A lot of things that are a big deal now, have been done or thought of before and self driving cars are one of them.
GM postulated centrally controlled freeway driving in the 50’s, and early cruise control was marketed as “auto pilot” like the aviation technology. Now the sensor and processing technology that will make self driving cars a reality in five to 10 years is most definitely new, but not that new.
Individually, the sensors and actuators that make this technology work are already in place on production cars today.
Adaptive cruise control uses RF or LIDAR to measure the relative distance to the car in front, and drive by wire virtual throttle controls have been around for years. Lane departure warning with sensory feedback through steering or even corrective steering input is also a showroom fact, as are proximity sensors currently used as parking aids.
Self parking is available in models as pedestrian as the Ford Focus and parallel parking is a skill that a surprising number of drivers never managed to master.
So what’s so special about self driving cars? It’s primarily in the integration of sensor data and the ability to process that information into a virtual, actionable map of the car’s surroundings. In other words, it’s the code and processing speed, not sensors and actuators.
From a manufacturing standpoint, this means that the physical wiring harness, data transfer protocols and sensor/actuator designs won’t be radically different in design or assembly. Put simply, most of the hard work in mass-producing self driving cars is on the assembly line right now.
This has implications for auto manufacturers and their Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers: the first is that self driving will not revolutionize anything in the way cars are designed or built in the foreseeable future.
The second is that self driving cars will not change vehicle ownership rates. What’s happened here is the premature association of Uber and other car sharing models with self driving technology to suppose that the future will be dominated by automated taxi services rather than personal ownership of cars and light trucks.
The futurists and genius teenagers coding in their parent’s basements believe it, but in the real world personal ownership of a vehicle will always give individuals unmatched freedom in their personal lives and in their choice of employment. I think that self driving technology will have the opposite effect: it will make personal ownership of motor vehicles even more attractive.
Why? Because when the vehicle drives you, you can do other things than drive.
Most expect that motor vehicles will become mobile offices or dens, wired with multimedia and delivering entertainment education and communication to millions of commuters. When those auto owners are freed from the need to actually drive the car, ownership can extend to those too young, too old, too infirm, or too incompetent to actually drive.
20 years ago it broke my father’s heart when he could no longer drive his beloved Mustang GT, and thanks to self driving technology I expect to have a better dotage.
It’s all good, but the vehicles will be screwed together the same way, on the same lines, using the same hardware and will still have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal and brake for the next quarter century.
When will they become truly autonomous? When there is a statistically significant data set that shows that manually driving the car is less safe than auto-drive. When that happens, the insurance and safety lobbies will push for the removal of hand controls, but it may take a generation to implement.
