Fully Autonomous Self Driving Cars Might Never Happen

The world is planning on major changes when we see the introduction of fully autonomous self-driving vehicles. It only makes sense since this would be revolutionary technology. It would change everything and destroy a lot of jobs.

Of course, this all presumes that we do reach Level 5 autonomy. The scenario changes if we never see this level of advancement.

This is an idea posed by the CEO of Volkswagon's autonomous driving division. After 5 years of hype, this threw some reality into the equation.

Sitting down with WardsAuto at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, VW Autonomy's Alex Hitzinger said Level 4 might be the realistic limit for what automakers can build. He wasn’t shy in pointing out the relative difficulty of trying for full Level 5 autonomy.

It is an idea that goes counter to what Elon Musk has stated. He claimed that Tesla is near fully autonomy with its system. However, it must be noted that nothing close to that is seen from Tesla at this point. So far, the company was able to achieve Level 2, a state where the driver much pay attention under all conditions.

Despite that, he's confident in VW's ability to make a Level 4 autonomous vehicle, saying that the upcoming I.D. Buzz electric van will be the first VW to receive the technology. That makes sense given the van's potential as a commercial vehicle; other automakers have pointed to those as a natural starting place for autonomous efforts since they generally follow fixed driving routes.

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/31816/key-volkswagen-exec-admits-level-5-autonomous-cars-may-never-happen

Of course, all of this could be splitting hairs. While Level 4 is vastly different from Level 5 capabilities, the disruption would still be enormous. Vehicles that can operate on their own from start to finish with only virtual safeguards in place would equally upset society. Most vehicles travel within a reasonably defined area of a few hundred miles.

Whether we see Level 4 as compared to Level 5, in my opinion, we see the same impact. There is no way for society not to be radically changed when the driving of most vehicles goes from humans to computers. Even if there is an individual in a control room monitoring, this will only be a stopgap in the event of a problem.

The percentage of the driving done, especially commercially, is rather routine and mapped out. We are already seeing progress with autonomous trucking, taking over the highway while leaving the around town stuff to humans.

This will probably how things unfold in that arena. We could see something similar in the world of individual vehicles.

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