205who drives the CAr?
communication—is a minor problem, since there is already consen-
sus: most current projects make use of a Wi-Fi transmitter containing
a specic standard for the exchange of information. However, legal
authorization, as a legal framework for cooperative driving, must be
created before the launch, and acceptance by the general public could
be major factors in delaying the launch.
It is expected that the most realistic introduction for the commer-
cial adoption of the cooperative driving will start with long-distance
haulage. Since road haulage is a huge industry, the impact of coop-
erative driving could be signicant. In Europe, for example, there
are 6.5 million heavy goods vehicles in operation,* and in the United
States, there are 15.5 million.
†
Lorries (of more than 3.5 tons) in the
EU account for more than one-quarter of road transportation CO
2
emissions, that is, 6% of total EU emissions of CO
2
.
‡
Since 2014, the
*
http://www.cepi.org/topic/transport/positionpaper/roadfreighttransport.
†
http://www.truckinfo.net/trucking/stats.htm.
‡
http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/index_en.htm.
this immediate response, cars can be packed more densely, and
will drive without safety implications. Such a platoon consists
of six to eight cars, with a “leader,” which is a car that has an
experienced driver who knows the route. A particular driver
who wants to take an exit retakes control of the car again and
leaves the convoy by steering toward the exit. e other cars in
the platoon close the gap and continue, until the convoy splits
again. Researchers see great benets for long-distance com-
muters on a highway: while the “platoon” moves forward, they
are free to read, watch TV, make phone calls, etc. Platooning
has a positive eect on road capacity and yields a reduction in
fuel consumption because as a result of the exchange of infor-
mation road users maintain a constant speed. Platooning also
has fewer problems in relation to drivers’ overreaction. For
example, if one motorist brakes slightly, the car to the rear
brakes a little harder. is overreaction spreads like a shock
wave through trac and is the cause of so-called ghost trac
jams, in which trac suddenly halts, seemingly without a clear
cause, such as merging trac or a narrowing road.
206 Just ordinAry robots
European Commission is working on a comprehensive strategy to
reduce CO
2
emissions from lorries. Experiments with driverless truck
convoys have been under way for years. In 2013, for example, Japan’s
New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization
(NEDO) tested a caravan of self-driving lorries.* ey put four lorries
on the road, with the rst truck being driven by a human, followed
by three autonomous lorries. e caravan successfully used technolo-
gies for steering, for maintaining speed, and for staying in close for-
mation at a speed of 80km/h (or 50 mph), and kept a 4 meter (or
13foot) distance between each truck to create a slipstream of lower
air resistance. e main goal of the researchers is to investigate what
can be accomplished in terms of fuel eciency. ey say that running
convoys of lorries in this manner could contribute to lower air resis-
tance, helping to reduce fuel consumption by 15% or more. is cor-
responds with the results of the tests done with two lorries platoons by
Peloton Technology in California
†
and with three lorries platoons by
Lu and Shladover (2014). According to Mike Baker, the chief engi-
neer at Ricardo UK Ltd. and involved in the SATRE Project, “[T]he
long-haul vehicles have the most to gain, in terms of both safety and
economic benets. e fuel savings witnessed by lorries in a platoon
has a signicant impact on the operating prots of the operator, not to
mention the environmental impact of reduced CO
2
and emissions.”
‡
With the aid of trac management, it becomes possible to not
only guide the movement at the level of individual vehicles but also
manage trac ow. is oers the prospect of improved safety lev-
els, better trac performance, and less impact on the environment.
In addition, the development of in-car technologies will increase in
the coming years. Several experts consider these developments as
harbingers of further robotization of driving, which will eventually
lead to the autonomous or self-propelled vehicle. In this development,
the prex “auto” in the word automotive would really take on its true
meaning of “self-propelling.”
*
http://phys.org/news/2013–03-japan-group-fuel-saving-driverless-trucks.html. In
the United States, for example, Peloton Technology in California has already car-
ried out tests with two truck platoons.
†
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140610-the-trucks-which-drive-themselves.
‡
http://www.techhive.com/article/2046262/the-rst-driverless-cars-will-actually-
be-a-bunch-of-trucks.html.
207who drives the CAr?
5.5 Autonomous Cars (Level 4)
e autonomous car was rst promised in 1939 by Bel Geddes dur-
ing the Futurama exhibition he designed for General Motors for New
York World’s Fair. At Futurama, Geddes speculated about what soci-
ety would look like in the future. In his book Magic Motorways (1940),
he writes: “ese cars of 1960 and the highways on which they drive
will have in them devices which will correct the faults of human beings
as drivers. ey will prevent the driver from committing errors.” In
1958, General Motors engineers demonstrated the rst “autonomous
car.” is car was autonomously driven over a stretch of highway by
way of magnets attached to the car and wiring in the roadway, also
called “automatic highways” (V2I technology). In a press release,
General Motors proudly announced the result:
An automatically guided automobile cruised along a one-mile check
road at the General Motors Technical Center today, steered by an elec-
tric cable beneath the concrete surface. It was the rst demonstration
of its kind with a full-size passenger car, indicating the possibility of
a built-in guidance system for tomorrow’s highways.… e car rolled
along the two-lane check road and negotiated the banked turn-around
loops at either end without the driver’s hands on the steering wheel.
Wetmore (2003, p. 7)
e rst real autonomous car was developed in 1977 by the Tsukuba
Mechanical Engineering Laboratory in Japan. It tracked white street
markers and achieved speeds of up to 30km/h (or 20 mph).*
In 1974, 46 researchers predicted that automatic highways would
become a reality between 2000 and 2020 (Underwood, Ervin, &
Chen, 1989). Since then, several researchers have been working on
the development of autonomous cars, but with relatively little suc-
cess. Developments have been given a boost by the initiative of the
U.S. military agency Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), which in 2004 took the initiative and organized a contest
for autonomous vehicles. is DARPA Grand Challenge competi-
tion implied that autonomous cars had to travel a distance of over
*
http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/where-to-a-history-of-autonomous-vehicles/.
208 Just ordinAry robots
200kilometers (or 120 miles) in the desert between California and
Nevada. e result, however, turned out to be pathetic, because the
team that had traveled the furthest only covered about 10 kilometers
(or 6 miles). In 2005, the competition was organized again. Out of the
23 participating teams, 5 made it to the nish line. e winning team
of Stanford covered the distance with an average speed of 30km/h
(or 20 mph). After this success, the bar was raised in 2007 with the
so-called DARPA Urban Challenge, in which the car had to travel
100kilometers (or 60 miles) in a simulated urban environment. Six of
the eleven participated teams completed the task. Although this com-
petition was a huge achievement, Urmson and Whittaker (2008) con-
cluded that one could not yet speak of a fully autonomous car, because
none of the participating cars could respond to trac lights, and most
cars had a hard time recognizing pedestrians. Partly in response to
this competition, General Motors predicts that the autonomous car
will be ready for the commercial market in 2020.
e development of autonomous cars continues steadily, and
researchers and those who develop these cars constantly emphasize
the benets of them. e societal and economic benets of auton-
omous cars include a decrease in the number of crashes, decreased
loss of life, increased mobility for the elderly, disabled, and blind, and
decreases in fuel usage. e large potential savings, which Morgan
Stanley (2013) estimates at U.S. $1.3 trillion/year, should accelerate
the adoption of self-driving vehicles. e researchers outline four key
areas in which the U.S. savings will come:
1. Fuel cost savings of $158 billion (“an autonomous car can be
30% more ecient than an equivalent non-autonomous car”).
2. Annual savings of $488 billion will come through a reduction
of accident costs (“[i]f 90% of accidents are caused by driver
error, taking the driver out of the equation could theoretically
reduce the cost of accidents by 90%”).
3. Increased productivity is likely to result in a gain of $507
billion (“people can work in their cars while commuting to
work or at any other time”).
4. A further $149 billion (“[a]utonomous cars should be able to
largely eliminate congestion due to smoother driving style
and actively managed intersections and trac patterns”).
209who drives the CAr?
Eight percent of the GDP of the United States is valued at $1.3
trillion. e company Morgan Stanley, a nancial advisor to com-
panies, governments, and investors from around the world, stated
that “[e]xtrapolating these savings to a global level … we estimate
global savings from autonomous vehicles to be in the region of
5.6 trillion per year” (Morgan Stanley, 2013, p. 7). ese sav-
ings, however, can only be achieved at level 4 (full self-driving
automation).
A benet is also that with the introduction of autonomous cars,
disabled persons or the elderly will be enabled to drive their own
cars. Another possible benet is related to the fact that autono-
mouscars are less prone to crashing. ey need fewer safety fea-
tures and can therefore be smaller and lighter than current vehicles,
making them 10 times more energy ecient and making them bet-
ter suited to using electric power (Burns, Jordan, & Scarborough,
2013). According to Litman (2014), however, “the ability to work
and rest while travelling may induce some motorists to choose
larger vehicles that can serve as mobile oces and bedrooms
(‘commuter sex’ may be a marketing strategy for such vehicles) and
drive more annual miles” (p. 6). is corresponds with the vision of
Dieter Zetsche, the chairman of Daimler and head of Mercedes-
Benz Cars: “e car is growing beyond its role as a mere means of
transport and will ultimately become a mobile living space.”* e
new research vehicle F015 Luxury in Motion of Mercedes-Benz
is a concrete example of this vision of autonomous driving of the
future (see Figure 5.3). e autonomous car will ultimately become
a private retreating space, where passengers have the freedom to
use their valuable time on the road in manifold ways. As a conse-
quence, the autonomous car will be very large: the F015 Luxury in
Motion has an unusual length of more than 5 meters (or 16 feet)
and a width of more than 2 meters (or 6.5feet). is is in contrast
to the vision of Burns etal. (2013) that autonomous cars will be
smaller and lighter.
But before the autonomous car can be introduced into the com-
mercial market, it is essential that autonomous cars can be tested in
*
http://www.cnet.com/news/mercedes-benz-unveils-luxury-concept-self-
driving-car/.
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