Self-driving cars are not a pipe dream – they are inevitable. When you count up the benefits, the value is huge: found time, increased safety, better energy use, much better traffic management and more dense utilization of each square foot of pavement. While the potential obstacles are definitely notable, the value of the “pros” will inevitably outweigh the “cons.” As we edge toward 2020, we will see tremendous progress in the space.
But, even with this optimism, most of the big news stories about autonomous cars are not as impressive as they sound. This realization hit me when I took a demo ride in a Google self-driving-modified Lexus 450h around Mountain View, Calif. The ride, while awesome in so many ways, was actually a let-down to my high expectations.
I had been led to believe from news articles and from Google-issued PR like this 2012 video of a blind man running errands in an autonomous car, that the Google cars could drive themselves about town to various destinations. But more than two years after that video was produced, the car I rode in could not even operate on city streets – freeway only. So we drove conventionally until past the on-ramp, and on the limited-access road.
And while the car could brake, accelerate and operate smoothly in thick traffic up to 65 mph while following a safe distance from the car ahead, I was shocked to learn that it could not change lanes. What? The car, despite having an up-to-the-second, laser-locked reckoning of the cars around it in a 360-degree circle, could not apply a turn signal and shift into another lane.
Even worse, if a box were to fall off a truck and stay in the lane ahead of us, the car would try to come to a full stop rather than use the steering to try to avoid the box. Why not? One would assume the car would be much better than a human at assessing the risk of avoidance maneuvers in entering adjacent lanes since it has a constantly running 3-D model of available space and cars. So, while I appreciate what Google has done for research and development, for awareness and for pushing the industry forward, the car was nothing like the “blind man” video, and overall disappointing. Expectations were set to nine-tenths, but reality was more like four-tenths. To be fair, Google continues innovating and has a newer city-street autonomous car with a bug-like look and no steering wheel.
So, is autonomous driving a thing … or not? Well, it’s not if you believe Holman Jenkins Jr. at The Wall Street Journal, whose recent column “Google and the self-driving delusion” rejects the self-driving car – or more specifically, rejects the moonshot, sudden-leap forward versions of autonomous driving.
But, after coming down from my Google drive, what I have found is that autonomy is not something that will arrive as a revolution, in some sudden adoption of these “moonshot” projects, but is progressing surprisingly quickly, steadily and stealthily in the vehicles you and I currently buy. While the moonshot projects make great PR and push the discussion forward, it is the advanced driver assistance systems that put rubber to the road.
ADAS and other systems have been steadily removing the human from the car control equation since as far back as the 1980s. Think about it:
• Automatic – your car can shift 3 gears for you
• Cruise control – your car holds speed for you
• Anti-lock brakes – your car brakes better than you
• Stability control – your vehicle adapts power for you
• Headlights are automated
• Rear obstacle sensors that beep.
• GPS – your car knows the roads better than you, except local savvy
• Lane-departure warning – you are bad at steering
• Modern automatic manual transmissions – your car shifts better than you
• Collision avoidance, automatic braking
• Adaptive cruise control – the car holds speed, reducing power to follow
• Adaptive cruise, version two – the car can also brake and works at low speeds
• Lane keeping – you are bad at steering, and the car does it for you
• Connected car – your car knows traffic better, picks better routes
• Social-connected car – your car knows local conditions better than you
• Self-parking – the car can parallel park itself
• Fly-by-wire – your pedal inputs are electronic “suggestions” for the computer to interpret
Each of these fully commercialized enhancements has chipped away at your actual control of the car. In fact, many of the inputs you provide are actually taken as mere suggestions by the car. You want to slam the brakes? The ABS begs to differ. You want to hit the gas on snow? You may put the pedal to the metal, but you are not activating a throttle valve anywhere in the engine – you are just telling the computer that you want to accelerate hard, but the ESC system has other ideas. So sorry.
If you put all of these individual enhancements together and add a central brain, or an “autonomous driving onboard computer system,” you would have a self-driving car. Thus, a significant number of modern cars are already just a small step away from the so-called self-driving car I rode in from Google, and some are even at parity.
Tesla recently rolled out version 6.1 of the Model S operating software, enabling the car to do what my Google ride did by driving in a lane on the highway and adapting to traffic ahead. The Tesla Model S has the hardware to self-drive and -park, and is just one more software update away from upstaging my Google ride – and this is in a commercialized car.
General Motor’s Cadillac “Super Cruise” can steer in a lane and keep pace in a 2016 model. Volvo is working on a project to sell 100 cars like the Google model to real customers by 2017. Nissan has automatic backup braking. Audi does highway and race course, and did self-parking demos in a public garage at CES 2014. At this year’s CES, Audi transported some press from San Francisco to Las Vegas in a self-driving Q7. And many auto manufacturers, like Nissan, have automatic emergency braking in existing models.
A funny thing is happening. While we’re all distracted by the self-driving car moonshots, normal high-end cars are steadily and rapidly becoming self-driving. For folks like Jenkins, I say take another look. Autonomous cars are a thing – and not just at CES or the Google-plex, but at a dealership or showroom near you.
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
