Driverless cars: Can you trust a robot to drive you home?

Uber and Ola are huge taxi companies but they own very few cars. However, their highly sophisticated systems of fleet management and GPS based navigation through city traffic make them so easily available and inexpensive. They have revolutionized personal transportation in nearly a thousand major towns worldwide with the result that many people don’t need to keep a car any longer. A small car with a driver can however only carry 3 passengers and if the driver can be eliminated it will increase its passenger capacity by 25%. Enough to greatly improve a taxi’s earning power or profitability.

The idea of a driverless car is, however, rather scary. It might be terrifying to see one speeding toward you but the ongoing revolution in electronics has achieved and is achieving many amazing things. A robot on an automotive manufacturing line is, for example, many times faster and more efficient than a hundred workers and they do not make mistakes. They don’t also need medicare, welfare benefits and they never go on strike. Modern robots can even do highly sensitive things like playing music or intelligent things like playing a game of chess. Virtual reality is becoming very real. It was recently reported that some Japanese men even prefer a soft and pliable silicone sex doll to a real life wife or girlfriend who can often be critical or uncooperative.

Human error is also by far the largest cause of accidents so a tiny robot hidden somewhere in a car may actually be a lot safer than a mortal human driver who can get tired, drunk or distracted by his mobile or by a pretty girl on the road ahead. There are already a few driverless trains but the idea of a driverless car or a pilotless plane makes people feel very uncomfortable. People, however, get used to innovation quite quickly.

Over the past decade, most of the automotive engineering has been driven by electronics that not only make engine management much more efficient but they also make the suspensions and brakes much safer. They play a huge role in climate control, lighting, and security to make a car easier to drive, more reliable and efficient. A modern car, therefore, has more chips in them than there are in a packet of wafers. Many modern cars not only have sensors to scan the road ahead but they also spot approaching cars, pedestrians or other hazards behind them and on their sides. They not only warn the driver but are programmed to begin safety measures of slowing the car or setting off hazard warnings. Many cars are programmed to be able to park themselves in small spaces or reverse into a small garage without the driver at the wheel so there is no reason to fear that they will not be able to steer a car through hectic traffic as well.

All these gadgets will, however, make autonomous cars more expensive so they will mainly be used by commercial cars that travel long distances every year. But innovative new technologies like automatic gears, power steering, power windows, keyless entry and engine starting quickly became popular despite their higher costs. Technologies not only monitor a vehicle but also the driver and a camera monitoring the driver’s eyes will spot sleepiness or drunken behaviour. These technologies are not also made by the big auto companies but by hundreds of hi-tech vendors who always bring down their prices to make them more widely available.

Several car companies like Ford, GM, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo and others are already trying out several technologies for autonomous cars. A fleet of self-driving Google cars have so far clocked-up more than 300,000 miles without an accident. The road safety authorities in USA, Germany, Japan and elsewhere are not however fully convinced. Cars can be very dangerous so the safety of pedestrians and other road users cannot be ignored.

The first death in an autonomous car occurred in May this year according to the US road safety administration. A man was killed after his Tesla, operating in Autopilot mode, hit an articulated lorry. Joshua Brown was driving along a Florida highway in a Tesla Model S that had been switched to Autopilot mode, when a lorry drove into the highway from a cross street. His system failed to distinguish the white truck against a brightly lit sky so the self-driving system failed to spot the danger and apply the brakes in time. The accident was widely reported and has cast a long shadow over the safety of the technology. It will, therefore, take some time before autonomous cars become commercialized.

SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) has proposed a system of classifying autonomous vehicles listing features like Lane Keeping Assistance, Parking Assistance, Adaptive Cruise Control, etc. NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) of USA has also devised a classification system. The US army is also experimenting with self driving trucks and other vehicles as these could enable vehicles to deliver materials and men into hostile areas with reduced risk. Airport shuttles like the 'pods’ at Heathrow are small driverless vehicles that have been successful. It may take some time but autonomous cars will be around before very long.

Expensive driverless cars will not also be of much interest to most potential car owners who want to drive their own cars but it would impact the taxi and commercial car market. An auto driver option might, however, attract some buyers who don’t want to be arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. We can, however, be sure that all driverless cars and commercial vehicles will all be subject to many restrictions on speed.

The safety systems will be based on a careful mapping of the probable traffic conditions in any city and one wonders whether the designers will be able to anticipate the chaotic conditions on the streets of any city in the developing world with badly regulated mixed traffic of cars, buses, pedestrians, motorcycles, cycles, animals and other hazards.