Jon Excell
Editor
Ford’s announcement that it plans to introduce fully autonomous vehicles by 2021 is a significant milestone in the rise of a technology that, until recently, was viewed as a fringe concept by all but a handful of organisations.
As we’ve frequently reported, autonomous driving has gathered significant momentum in the past few years.
Most of the world’s major carmakers now have some form of autonomous “roadmap”, and the emergent interest of non-traditional firms like Google and Tesla has added momentum to the pace of technology development.
But such a bold statement of intent from Ford – arguably the world’s most well-known automotive brand, and the company that pioneered the era of the affordable vehicle – pushes the driverless dream into new territory.
According to an announcement made this week (August 2016) the firm plans to begin volume production of a fully autonomous vehicle by 2021. And when it says fully autonomous, it means fully autonomous. The vehicle in question, which will be underpinned by strategic investments in algorithms, 3D mapping, LiDAR sensors, and radar and camera sensors, won’t even have a steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedal.
Commenting on his company’s autonomous ambitions, Ford CEO Mark Fields said: “The next decade will be defined by automation of the automobile, and we see autonomous vehicles as having as significant an impact on society as Ford’s moving assembly line did 100 years ago.”
Significantly, the vehicle, which is being developed at Ford’s research facility in Palo Alto, California, is being specifically designed for commercial ride-sharing services rather than for private ownership – a move that has possibly been inspired by the growing popularity of ride-sharing services such as Uber or Lyft.
“We see autonomous vehicles as having as significant an impact on society as Ford’s moving assembly line did 100 years ago”
Mark Fields, CEO, Ford
Ford’s stated ambition to make all this happen in just five years time is undoubtedly a bold one. And the very fact that a firm of its pedigree is unafraid to express this ambition is a potent indicator of how serious the sector is about autonomy.
However it remains to be seen how Ford’s radically disruptive vision will actually go down with consumers.
While the steady march of semi-autonomous driver–assistance systems that have appeared on production vehicles in recent years have been reasonably well-received, anecdotal evidence – and reader response to our regular articles on the topic – suggest that full autonomy will be a tougher nut to crack acceptance-wise.
The car industry appears to have done a great job of solving some of the key technical challenges and convincing itself that the driverless car will be king. Its biggest challenge in the years ahead will be convincing consumers.
Wonderful things driverless and steeringwheel-less cars. Except for occasions where a wheel and a human brain is needed. Yesterday in London the cab I was in had to back up because of an oncoming large vehicle that could not reverse due to traffic behind it. My cabbie had to get te car behind to move back. What will the Ford car do there I wonder?
Another good example of why the ‘driverless car’ concept is defeated by ‘real world’ situations.
Forget test tracks, try it in a real city situation.
Responses to traffic lights, emergency vehicles coming up behind in traffic queues, pedestrians on crossings (or not), level crossings (especially ungated ones), temporary speed restrictions on motorways, icy conditions, punctured tyres, lane discipline at complicated junctions, etc . – the list goes on. Computers were once called TOMs, short for Totally Obedient Moron, and there’s a good reason for that – no human designed machine has ever been perfect and foolproof. Oh, and whose fault is it in an RTA? The occupants, the owner, the manufacturer, the programmer of the TOM?
No thankyou Mr Ford, Mr Tesla, Mr Google, Mr Apple or anyone else who wants to put such an unpredictable (form other drivers’ points of view) hazard on the road?
Ah… so are you suggesting these autonomous Fords would be built by robots and controlled by morons? Didn’t Fiat try that in the late 70’s?
This is a bit like electric vehicles – full of promise but never really delivers. I sometimes think it is technology for technologies sake.
Credit to all car manufacturers and technology companies for developing autonomous vehicles, it is an interesting and exciting design challenge. It will be an interesting time when such vehicles share the road with manually driven vehicles. I for one enjoy driving, so I will have some inner turmoil in dealing with the general changes that will be required in getting from point A to point B in the future, and the potential for manually driven cars being completely phased out as the law evolves to suit. Also, I don’t trust the likes of Ford to make a good conventional car, the engineering design and manufacturing quality just is not there – couple that fact with the requirement for reliable and secure multifaceted closed-loop controls systems for autonomous vehicles, I think, is a recipe for impending accidents. This still may lead to less overall accidents however – especially if only autonomous vehicles are permitted on the roads. The fact such vehicles could/would be networked would help manage any traffic issue I suspect – and therefore rely on advanced algorithms and potentially some AI. To this end, I think the safety and security industry needs to step up and define a clear set of design basis requirements and standards, along with an independent regulator, before self-driving cars are allowed on the roads.
That’s exactly what happened on my Driving Test! Luckily the Examiner had the good sense to pass me.
I wonder if a driverless car in that situation would have failed?
And Who would carry any Licence Points?
What happens when every child/drunk in the land realises that whenever they jump out in to the road all the traffic stops?
Aviation found out to their cost that there are still more issues to be solved which often cost lives , when the Airbus sensors failed two years ago the computer systems ” handed the stalling and untrimmed aircraft to one of the pilots” he didn’t have a chance and he had a set of controlls. Not on your nelly.
I am surprised at some of the comments I am seeing here assuming that all are from Engineers. The automation of driving is just a part of the huge structural shift we are now experiencing in our society as Robots and automation free us from more and more monotonous tasks. While I am sure there will be more issues and even fatalities with this technology it will save far more lives than it endangers. We have already accepted this technology in so many other parts of our lives.
I share Peter Blackburn’s disappointment with the replies – driverless cars have been navigating real world situations for a while now and have clocked up a huge number of miles, pulling up small examples where someone shouting ‘move back’ is required really feels like small minded stuff, I’d think that the readership of something like the Engineer would be forward looking and excited about the historic shift we’re about to experience.
I think it’s inevitable we will end up with driverless cars and the roads will be a lot safer for them. It presents some amazing opportunities for rethinking cities even as the cars could wait in designated off site areas and come to collect people as required, removing all the congestion of parked cars from the roads.
Andrew Watson touches on something that could be an issue, I suspect that we will move to a system where jaywalking becomes a crime and the fact these cars will be camera’d up to the rafters means that it will be pretty easy for offenders to be caught.
Credit to Ford, I suspect they are just getting out ahead of Musk as I suspect Tesla will be announcing a big step up in the autonomous system for the Model 3 very soon…
I think you’re right, cameras as a deterrent are probably the only option available.
As a cycle commuter, I’d much rather take my chances with an automated car than human-driven but I think that there are many hurdles yet to be cleared before their widespread adoption.
Mike Simmons example above shows that if we cannot get an automated system flawless in a tightly controlled system such as air transportation, what hope is there in the highly irregular system of road traffic? Even if we arrived at an ‘all automated’ vehicle situation (no manually driven vehicles to confuse matters), we still require solutions to solve the problem of fallen trees, drooping phone/electric cables, livestock on the road, etc. (all the stuff that’s near impossible to predict.)
To MJL and Peter Blackburn, I would just say that it’s not a question of considering us sceptics as some sort of 21st century Luddites, it’s simply that we’re the ones who can see more problems than solutions. The largest of which is still going to be the question of insurance cover – and who is going to take the responsibility when a driverless vehicle is ‘at fault’!
I’m not against the concept of being able to let the car take over on a boring motorway stretch, whilst I grab a quick nap; that sounds great. And to be able to get the car to drop me off in town and go and park itself somewhere and wait for my call – it all sounds too good to be true. I just have a gut feeling that ‘too good to be true’ is where we’re at at present.
I’m mainly looking forward to being able to enjoy a convenient couple of pints in a country pub with our self driving car dropping us off and picking us up 😉
Are we allowed to share links on here? It might get blocked but interesting to see Uber have started offering driverless cars already…!
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/dropping-off-drivers/
It is a pity that Ford has spent the last 20 years totally divesting itself from UK manufacturing particularly with the last backstabbing closure of their Southampton Transit van plant – until recently trumped as the “home of the Transit van”.