Self-Driving Cars, Tech Accelerate Toward Reality

CARS.COM — The 2017 North American International Auto Show in Detroit and Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas proved that when it comes to the automotive world, the future might seem fickler than fashion, but how we drive is never going to be the same.

Related: More Tech News

The Detroit auto show and CES had their fair share of cars and concepts that will someday look as dated as bell-bottomed jeans. But the march toward a future of self-driving vehicles is a trend that’s looking to have serious staying power.

Chrysler, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Ford and many other automakers featured concept cars with an electric powertrain coupled to a self-drive system that offers up to Level 4 autonomy, where a driver can still take control of vehicle functions. At Level 5, the car handles all driving situations all the time.

Few automakers have risked lobbing that deep into the future, however. Hail Mary passes are better handled by Green Bay’s quarterback Aaron Rodgers, not corporate giants with shareholders and a bottom line to appease. Look inside even some of the wildest concepts on the auto show circuit and you’ll still find a fixed steering wheel, four or five seats, and a fixed dashboard at the front of the cabin.

Not even BMW’s futuristic interior concept at CES — with its 3-D holographic dashboard, complete with ultrasonic sensors to tingle your fingertips — throws out the entire script when it comes to the basic layout of a car’s cabin. Two self-drive concepts, VW’s retro-tinged I.D. Buzz concept and Chrysler’s futuristic Portal minivan, while innovative in terms of engineering and design, also generally resemble the cars and trucks on today’s roadways.

The reality is the self-drive revolution is going to be better served with baby steps, careful planning and a degree of information sharing that will be unprecedented. That’s because car companies can’t afford to screw this up, otherwise they run the risk of losing billions of dollars and being left with an aimless path for the road ahead.

At CES, Audi officials talked about having highly autonomous models ready by 2020. Ford has a similar timeframe planned and a new fleet of self-drive Fusion sedan test cars to help make this a reality. Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence computing technology are at the forefront of this accelerated timetable. While not nearly as headline grabbing as a seductive concept car, companies such as ZF Friedrichshafen, Bosch, Panasonic and Nvidia all had next-generation AI computers as the stars of their stands at CES.

Why should I care? The near-term challenges to this bright future are going to be immense, but not insurmountable. Automakers and tech firms need to work together, even if it means losing an advantage over the competition. Try to imagine self-drive hardware as the ultimate seat belt. If one automaker develops the best version, one that is guaranteed to save lives, is there a moral obligation to make this technology available to everyone?

Modern cars must meet specific safety requirements, such as crash-test standards and federally required features such as antilock braking systems, traction control and airbags. But not every car is required to have surround-view cameras, blind spot monitors or rear cross-traffic alerts. Where will self-drive systems fit in? That remains to be seen.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has already laid out guidelines to help foster data and technology sharing among car and tech companies. For now, the guidelines are only recommendations, not enforceable rules such as crash protection and emissions regulations. That could change, especially as the timetable for Level 3 and Level 4 autonomous vehicles appears to be speeding up, not slowing down.

One thing that’s certain is that the current state-by-state patchwork of rules and regulations concerning autonomous vehicles is not sustainable. A single set of laws will make it easier for consumers to know whether their vehicle is considered safe and legal in all 50 states. Political games and phony posturing runs the risk of creating serious and frustrating hurdles when it comes to making cars smarter and safer.