Sasha Lekach* says there are numerous preconceptions about self-driving cars that need debunking.
Image: Metamorworks
If you’ve never seen a self-driving car, the concept can seem a bit much.
Cars driving themselves? What?
But the thing is, autonomous vehicle technology is already everywhere: in many of our human-controlled cars, on the road in driverless shuttles and vans, and coming from self-driving companies.
Even if it sounds like a far-off, futuristic proposition, self-driving cars aren’t sci-fi.
Engineering simulation software company Ansys surveyed more than 22,000 adults around the world about self-driving perceptions.
The survey found that older adults are less optimistic than younger adults about ever riding in a robocar.
Almost 60 per cent of respondents said they’re most concerned about a technological failure while onboard.
Getting over preconceptions about self-driving cars is a big step for the companies making them.
Mashable dug deeper to see what’s realistic, exaggerated, and just plain fantasy.
At an autonomous vehicle conference in August, Mike Demler, a senior analyst from The Linley Group, explained some the misconceptions about self-driving and what the vehicles can do.
Here are some common myths we debunked, or at least tried to clarify.
Self-driving cars will be here tomorrow — or never
Demler said he’s finally seeing fewer presentations about full autonomy without a human driver monitoring the car, known as Level 5, coming in five years.
“The technology is not ready,” he said in a recent phone call.
“This dream of just transforming everything into robotic vehicles that everyone is jumping into is a fantasy.”
Autonomy doesn’t just happen; instead it’s a lot of small, incremental milestones as the cars learn and train.
But just because it’s a longer timeline doesn’t mean it’s not happening ever.
“It’s not like these cars have to drive as well as a human drives, [they have to drive] much, much better,” Chris Jacobs, Vice President of autonomous transportation and safety at Analog Devices, said recently meeting.
That’s not a small feat.
There are factors beyond software and hardware: social acceptance, regulatory and government acceptance, infrastructure changes, and more.
Self-driving cars mean the end of car ownership
Last year, Americans bought 17.3 million new vehicles.
None of those was fully autonomous.
That’s not about to change overnight.
Instead, Jacobs sees an eventual duality, in which personally owned cars exist alongside autonomous robotaxi fleets.
Just because autonomous vehicles (AVs) are expensive and not set up for personal ownership doesn’t mean everyone will ditch their vehicle for access to an autonomous car through a ride-hail service.
Since AVs are so pricey and hard to produce in mass quantities, it’s expected that the only way to use them will be through ride services: you order a self-driving car on an app much like you do an Uber, except there’s no driver.
But, for certain drivers, like those who need to use a ute to haul something, carry a boat or pull a trailer, an autonomous car service is more complicated that just ordering a ride through an app since you’ll need something that works for your specific situation.
“These just don’t fit with autonomy,” Demler said.
Humans won’t ever drive again
Future generations might question why they’d ever want to learn to drive with ridesharing and robotaxis available.
But Jacobs says it will be a gradual social shift to fewer drivers.
Like horseback riding went from the roads to the farm, eventually (more) cars will go to the track and similar places, where driving enthusiasts will keep human driving alive in the time of autonomy.
Demler is even more critical of a driving-free future.
He sees too many use cases where an autonomous ride service doesn’t work.
Essentially, too many situations require a human at the wheel — and will for the foreseeable future, he believes.
But it’s not all or nothing.
As self-driving cars move on to public roads, the robocars will be riding alongside human drivers.
In this mixed mode, everyone has to work together.
Autonomous vehicles use out-of-reach technology
Jacobs works with the underlying tech used to power self-driving vehicles.
While it’s not ready for prime time, “most of it is here, all within our grasp,” Jacobs said.
By 2030, he says we’ll continue to see incremental improvements in cars anyone can buy.
That means features like automatic emergency steering and braking that use self-driving tech will become normal.
Demler agrees; lower levels of autonomy, usually Level 2, are becoming more common in everyday cars.
Audi and Cadillac have traffic assist features, while Nissan and Tesla both introduced semi-autonomous driving systems.
Other cars have parking assistance features.
Demler calls these “autonomous modes” that gear us up for full autonomy.
Autonomous cars sacrifice safety for convenience
For making a vehicle safer, “autonomous makes sense,” Demler conceded.
Self-driving cars can practically eliminate countless distracted, bad, and dangerous driving-based incidents.
Human error will be much less a factor if humans aren’t behind the wheel.
Even with all these preconceptions slowing acceptance of autonomy, self-driving vehicles are happening, or at least starting to test on public roads in more places.
As we’re exposed to the new type of driving, we’ll start to see what it’s really like.
As autonomous car tech executive Jacobs said: “Autonomy is going to come.”
Even if it takes a while, you might as well get ready.
* Sasha Lekach is a news writer in Mashable’s San Francisco office. She tweets at @sashajol.
This article first appeared at mashable.com.
