Manual driving will one day be replaced by autonomous driving. What will autonomous driving actually look like in the future?
Driving without people on board was recently permitted in the Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen. Also in parts of the USA there is the possibility without human supervision to drive an autonomous vehicle. Autonomous driving will come, but in what form?
Today’s idea of autonomous driving is that you get in your car, say your destination and the car drives off. It will probably look like that, but it will probably not be your own car that you get into. The top one percent is more likely to be able to afford this. Because autonomous driving will remain expensive. Autonomous transport not only costs the software, the licenses for which must probably be bought at great expense – because whether from Waymo or baidu. The investment and years of research need to be amortized.
In addition to the development costs, the expensive sensors are also a huge cost item. Above all the lidar sensor, of which you need several. Whether you can iron this out with software like it Tesla plan remains to be seen. Tesla and others want to deal with this primarily with cameras. Then there’s radar and cameras, and maybe other sensors like thermal imaging.
It becomes clear that the costs for private individuals could be too high. There are plenty of alternative ideas, whether as a taxi or car pooling or the classic, local public transport. These vehicles could be automated first. It is also important to consider how to deal with the old vehicles. Given the scarcity of resources, simply scrapping them is not the method of choice. Maybe they can be sold to the state in the future. Whether you can also recycle an accident car certainly depends on the damage. But already today there are specialized companies to which you can sell an accident car.
So far, the most interesting concept for autonomous driving in the future is the skateboard concept. The lower part of the cart, the skateboard with the wheels and the substructure, must be of stable construction and durable. The upper part can be replaced. This modular concept was used, for example, by Rinspeed developed. The superstructure can be exchanged as required – whether as a bus, as an ambulance or as an emergency vehicle. It is flexible and can be changed quickly. The skateboards must be standardized and should be regularly maintained for longevity.
In my opinion, this is what autonomous driving could look like in the future.