There are new efforts worldwide to initiate autonomous driving without a steering wheel and pedals. Examples are Ford, GM and Baidu.
Autonomous vehicles must be recognizable in order to be spotted. One thinks of markings, Mark or special colors and lights. But another identifying feature in the future will be the lack of one steering wheel be. This development, which was foreseeable, is currently picking up speed.
US: Ford and GM file petition
The manufacturers ford and General Motors in the USA advocate the use of autonomous vehicles without a steering wheel. Such tests have been carried out for some time, as is currently the case with Argo AI in Texas power. In order to do this on a larger scale, manufacturers are asking for more exemptions for the limited number of possible vehicles without steering wheels and pedals. Currently, 2,500 vehicles per year and carmaker are allowed.
the NHTSA published the positions, which means that they are open to comment for 30 days as is normal. After the petition expires, NHTSA may agree to this. The US agency’s priority is safety. But the petition is not about selling the vehicles. But Ford wants to introduce autonomous ride-hailing and an autonomous delivery service.
But GM in particular has problems with Cruise, like a whistleblower commented. A previous application by GM was posed in 2018 and retired in 2020. Of the application has not been granted to date.
Baidu World 2022: Apollo RT6
In China, the Google equivalent Baidu also declared at Baidu World 2022 to remove the steering wheel and pedals. A prototype for urban and autonomous driving was presented there: Apollo RT6. A robot taxi that features a detachable steering wheel.
This is the sixth generation of the robot taxi and the first to be built on Xinghe. The e-vehicle with its steering wheel-free design allows more individualization in the interior design, so that there is space for other seating, desks, game consoles or a vending machine.
The RT6 model is scheduled to join the fleet from 2023 and production is expected to roll tens of thousands off the assembly line. The cost per vehicle is around 250,000 RMB, which is around 26,250 euros. The vehicle is at level 4 and has 1,200 TOPS (trillion operations per second) processing power. 38 onboard sensors ensure urban perception, eight of which are lidar sensors.
Baidu works with more than 200 industry partners, including automakers such as the Apollo development platform bmw, Daimler and Volkswagen and the hardware manufacturers intel and Nvidia.