Categories: News

Driverless Cars: The Future of Our Highways?

Driverless cars…Self-Driving Cars, Autonomous Vehicles…what you call them might be less important than the projected fact that they will make up 75%+ of cars on the road by 2040. Cadillac announced in April 2012 that it’s been developing a self-driving car that could be ready by 2015. Tesla announced last month that it will have a car that’s “90 percent autonomous…developed solely by Tesla with in-house technology” within three (3) years. Nissan is planning to introduce commercially viable autonomous vehicles by 2020. California has already passed legislation that requires the California Department of Motor Vehicles to draft regulations for autonomous vehicles by January 1st, 2015. Google…a major player in the legislation…has it’s own fleet of self-driving cars that have travelled over 300,000 miles in testing…”without a single accident.”

Most recently, Mercedes-Benz recently tested an autonomous S-class on public roads and declaring its desire to be first to market with such a car… this decade. And finally, Nissan has proclaimed plans to sell affordable self-driving cars by 2020,

Autonomous driving is said to be safer simply because machines work more quickly than we do. Our eyes capture fewer frames per second than a high-speed camera, our brain processes data and reacts to it more slowly than a CPU, and our hands and feet are trounced for pace by electronic actuators.

Besides the safety and mobility benefits, autonomous cars would make us tremendosly more efficient. Why stress out over the daily grind of your commute…when working on your upcoming presentation that morning or simply reading a relaxing book?

But a major factor that will determine who’s most successful in bringing driverless technology to market is…trust. “Consumers trust technology companies like Google and Apple more than automakers when it comes to building self-driving cars, a new KPMG LLP study reveals.”

Consumers trust technology companies like Google and Apple more than traditional automakers when it comes to building self-driving cars, a new KPMG LLP study reveals.
“What came through loud and clear was that technology companies scored highest among consumers in the focus groups,” according to the advisory firm.
The survey shows technology companies logged a median score of eight on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest level of trust.