The great disappearing-driver trick

Carmakers have their foot on the accelerator in the search for car with nobody at the steering wheel

When Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google, predicted recently that the Internet would eventually "disappear", it set more than a few heads around the globe spinning. But if that was enough, Google has another disappearing trick up its sleeve: it is intent on consigning car drivers to the scrap heap of history.

Google, one of whose key tools has been camera-equipped cars roaming the streets of the planet taking pictures for its mapping services, has already developed a totally driverless car that has been able to travel more than 1 million kilometers, and it is expected to be on the market in 2017.

Indeed, Google's plans are so advanced that it already has parts suppliers for future mass production. The suppliers include Bosch for power electronics and radar, and ZF Lenksysteme for steering gear.

But traditional carmakers have more modest ambitions for the car of the future than does Google. As with many of them, Nissan says it is developing self-driving cars to reduce the intervention of human beings and thus the possibility of mistakes, but that it has no plans to entirely do away with the need for physical control of vehicles.

The company's ultimate goal with self-driving is "zero-deaths" in any accidents, a representative for the firm says. "This goal together with the zero-emissions one, are the two major directions of Nissan's technological routes."

Nissan's self-driving model is built on its existing electric model the Leaf. Engineers have embedded sensors and panoramic scanners in the car that constantly look for physical barriers, road signs or any potential threats on the road. The data are fed into computers that then order the car to speed up, slow down, turn or stop.

Instead of boasting the more ambitiously imagined features of the future cars, Nissan seems keener to apply mature technologies onto its current models. In July last year, Carlos Ghosn, the company's president and CEO, said it would be adding self-parking technology to most of its models. Nissan would soon have the technology that would allow cars to negotiate intersections without driver intervention.

Intersections pose a huge challenge for companies that are developing self-driving cars. Pedestrians, other vehicles, traffic lights and weather present these computer-assisted vehicles with a huge number of variable conditions, the correct assessment and correlation of which are critical to safety.

Nevertheless, Nissan has said it will commercialize its self-driving technologies within the next five years, and it is looking beyond the motoring industry for help. In January the company and NASA's Ames Research Center announced a five-year partnership in researching and developing self-driving systems. Even as Nissan applies the knowledge gained to its cars, NASA will apply any resulting technologies to space exploration and research.

Volvo's hopes for self-driving cars are a little more clear cut, and are set out in a plan broken up into four categories: driver-assistance, partial automation, high automation, and full automation. "Volvo will be the first to put the high automation driving technologies into mass production," says Hakan Samuelsson, president and CEO of Volvo Car Group, adding that the company is gradually applying established technologies to its existing vehicles.

Self-driving technologies are key to its zero-collision and zero-injury goals, it says. It recently unveiled its XC90 model, which can automatically follow cars in traffic.

But of course, turning self-driving vehicles into a practical reality goes beyond resolving technological issues. It also involves infrastructure, laws and myriad other matters of public interest that cannot be left to car makers.

At the end of 2013 Volvo initiated a Drive Me project with the aim of consulting all stakeholders in motor vehicle traffic. It also plans to invite members of the public to take part in a self-driving test in Gothenburg in 2017 to gauge how well these new cars can blend into people's everyday lives.

The company says it hopes to achieve complete self-driving in 20 years. "By switching freely from the driver's mode and the autonomous driving mode, people in the cars can keep energetic and become more efficient," the company says.

To achieve this, two key technologies need to be refined, it says: intelligent auto safety solutions and connectivity of cars. "With the intelligent auto safety solutions, drivers are less likely to make mistakes; with the connectivity of cars the car can communicate with other cars and the traffic infrastructure, so it can decide the best route to the destination with minimum of congestion and collision."

As car companies working on self-driving cars consult calendars to fix dates for having them rolling out of showrooms, the prototypes of many Chinese carmakers are still at an early stage. But these companies are trying to catch up, and carmakers including FAW, Dongfeng, SAIC and Changan have all developed self-driving models and are busy testing them.

To speed up their research and development, these tier-A Chinese carmakers have partnered with various Internet or IT companies - Dengfeng with Huawei, GAC with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and FAW with National University of Defense Technology - to work on the technologies.

wangchao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/30/2015 page15)