Connected And Autonomous Vehicles – Full Speed Ahead Or Tapping The Brakes?

The Center for Automotive Research (CAR)'s annual Management Briefing Seminars opened yesterday in Traverse City, Michigan. The afternoon sessions included a robust discussion of "Connected and Automated Vehicles - The Future is Now (Almost)." This title reflected the ambivalence and widely varying viewpoints of how close fully autonomous vehicles are to becoming a reality, with predictions ranging from one year to 15 years. As someone who is closely tracking developments in this area, this was a head scratching moment that made me ask myself: Why are the trees not growing to the sky anymore?

The panelists included moderator Richard Wallace, Director of Transportation Systems, CAR; Kevin Kerrigan, Director of the State of Michigan's Automotive Office; Kirk Steudle, Director of the Michigan Department of Transportation; Brian Daugherty, CTO of the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association, Andreas Busse, Senior Architect of Driver Assistance Systems, Electronics Research Lab, VW; Praveen Singh, Vice President, Connectivity, Lear Corporation; Gareth William, Director of Advanced Development, Mitsubishi Electric; Ralf Lenninger, Senior Vice President, Interior Electronics Solutions, Continental AG; and Danny Shapiro, Senior Director of Automotive, NVIDIA.

Even in the midst of all the recent Connected and Autonomous Vehicle positive developments, including the recent announcement of the American Center for Mobility at the former 335-acre Willow Run (aka "Arsenal of Democracy") facility near Ann Arbor and the planned 350 miles of "Smart Corridors" to be installed in southeast Michigan by 2019 that were noted by Kevin Kerrigan and Director Steudle, the tone and predictions of the panel appeared to be somewhat muted by the recent Tesla automated vehicle crash, which is receiving a lot of regulatory scrutiny.

Brian Daugherty of MEMA was quick to discuss "Autonomous" vs. "Automated" vehicles, with the latter being a critical and growing part of the automotive parts industry and the former being the subject of excess "media hype" and a "noble goal." Daugherty noted that

"fully autonomous vehicles are a long way off, except in controlled environments."

Daugherty stressed the need for reliability and redundancy, at scale. On the other hand, automated vehicle development including Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) protocols are low cost systems that help drivers in 80% of all non-impaired crashes, he noted.

Andreas Busse of VW began the...

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