How long will it be before autonomous cars hit the streets? A current outlook.
When I founded this site, it was very often – not only from Elon Musk and Tesla – the speech of one decade. Until today, people wanted to have autonomous driving practically in their pockets. Maybe not level 5, i.e. full autonomy always and everywhere, but level 4, the high autonomy, should be commonplace today from the point of view of the time. But that’s not the case. Currently, Level 4 only has Waymo and GM’s Cruise up its sleeve. Although most manufacturers can theoretically achieve this state, it has hardly been enough in practice so far level 3.
From today’s perspective, one could speak of ten years again. So by the year 2033 should it succeed? This is, of course, looking into a crystal ball. One cannot anticipate the political, technical and climatic conditions. If there is more war, there will be a leap in the development of the AI or will climate change force us to make drastic changes.
In fact, the world wars had hitherto been committed on the threshold of new developments and the wars led to increased research, which was then used militarily. This could spark a jump in the AI, which then might autonomous weapon systems leads. It would drastically change the basic conditions and also increase climate change.
Most of the development is in the area of software. Be it the interpretation of the sensors or the route guidance or something like that. However, the software industry how Google or Waymo or Amazon, are currently struggling with many layoffs. The days of cheap money are over and big companies are starting to save. Innovations and savings do not go together, so one can probably speak of a delay in development.
The question now is, will the crises accelerate innovation or not?