How people get around is set to change massively in the near future. A panel of experts discussed the future of mobility at Mindshare’s Huddle event on 12 November.
Autocar editor in chief Steve Cropley drove an autonomous vehicle in Tokyo the previous week, which he compared to “being driven by your very pedantic oldest auntie”, sticking to the same speed up and down hills and following the line tightly around corners.
He also pointed out that if the police see you without your hands on the wheel, they will give you a ticket.
“It was actually kind of frustrating,” Cropley said. “I found myself thinking I would seize the wheel and say ‘oh for god’s sake’!”
“You have to press the indicator and touch the steering wheel to change lanes,” added Stuff deputy editor Tom Parsons. “I kind of think ‘If I’m already holding the wheel, I could just do it myself’”.
However, the cars learn from you and he believes will pick up more human responses to deliver people to their destinations, despite some trouble in traffic and merging lanes.
He postulated about what happens if the machine “throws its hands up in the air – if you are sitting there reading the paper, and it suddenly says ‘I give up now’”.
“We’re some way from full autonomy, I think that’s fair to say,” said Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) director of engineering and technology Neil Sharpe,”but it’s inevitable, it’s happening.”
Cropley said there are three levels of automation – ‘feet off’, ‘hands off’ and ‘brain off’. “I think ‘brain off’ is a long way away,” he added.
“I think people will want two thirds of it but whether people will want the full ‘hands off’ experience is another thing”.
Feet off, hands off, brain off
Cropley feels that progression will have happened by 2018, with a pretty good ‘hands off’ mode available by 2020, but ‘brain off’ is about 20 years away.
“When you are trying to balance the human and the autonomous, it becomes very tricky,” said Parsons. “It’s difficult for a human to get back in to driving zone, it takes 15 seconds by which point you’re into the car in front.”
“I like cars, I like driving,” Parsons added. “Unless you go the full way, there’s always going to be that problem of mixing humans and robots.”
Parsons felt that most accidents were the fault of humans hitting the cars, leading to the need to segregate autonomous cars with a separate motorway lane.
“I think there will be a divergence, with newer highways and hyper lanes,” he added.
Sharpe felt that these advances would make it difficult for brands and car companies to make the kind of returns they are used to, leading to more car sharing.
Cropley said “like Boris bikes, it could be a bit of a disaster for people making cars, but their answer is ‘everything will get much newer and it’ll be fine for us’”. However, he speculated that, once everyone had bought a new car, then there will be trouble.
Peugeot Citroen already run a system where you can swap your vehicle depending on your needs. “
“We’re used to owning cars and owning things and I think that will change,” said Parsons while Sharpe added that “getting something like that across to the general population is a very difficult thing”.
“When television arrived radio didn’t go away,” said Cropley.
Fantasy vs reality
“This fantasy of getting in to car in the morning, pressing go and reading the paper, that’s a long way off,” said Parsons, “As is having an autonomous car that can take you home from the pub – that’s the bit that really excites me!”
“The humanisation of this technology needs to happen pretty quickly,” said Sharpe, adding that the safety piece can’t be underplayed.
“I have this fond notion that in the areas that it’s beneficial we will have a high proportion of autonomous cars we can use casually and we’ll have our Dodge Viper at home in the garage but that is perhaps being a bit hopeful,” said Cropley.
Discussing the first autonomous vehicle trials, Sharpe said the “key is data”. “Everyone talks about big data but it is contextualised data and the ways you can apply it,” he added.
“It’s going to take time to get the political and social things right – people have been educated to do things in a certain way for a very, very long time. The things that really challenge me are the steps along the line – safety and mobility would increase exponentially.”
Parsons discussed the need for car manufacturers to work together on integrating features with a common set of guidelines to allow cars to communicate with each other.
“An electric car feels remarkably like freedom,” added Cropley. “It’s good – you drive this thing and you get exactly what you ask for, it’s a great view of the future.”
“With autonomous, it does feel like there has to be a point when the switch is flicked, that’s the interesting thing for me,” said Parsons. “It’s hard to imagine it ever really happening.”
