Hyundai has created an eye-catching video to show off its futuristic electric vehicle (EV) wireless charging system.
The film shows a connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) driving itself to a charging bay, being powered up via magnetic induction, and then parking itself in an ordinary bay nearby.
The owner then summons the car using an automated valet parking app on her smartphone.
“Valet parking systems will enable autonomous vehicles to drop passengers at convenient points, after which the vehicle will leave by itself to undertake a further journey, or park out-of-town,” he said.
Facing stiff new competition from Tesla, tech giants like Apple and a plethora of well-funded start-ups, leading vehicle manufacturers are pouring money into driverless cars.
GM has even appointed its company president, Dan Ammann, to be CEO of its self-driving unit, while Cruise cofounder, Kyle Vogt, stays to lead technology development.
According to GM Chairman and CEO, Mary Barra, this demonstrates a “commitment to transforming mobility through the safe deployment of self-driving technology and moves us closer to our vision for a future with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.”
Its new Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID) subsidiary has a remit covering all aspects of autonomous technology, from software and hardware to maps and calibration.
Led by CEO Karlheinz Wurm, who spent 12 years at Skype, AID has a goal to bring totally driverless vehicles to market by 2021.
By then, BMW might be on a sticky wicket with its famous “Ultimate Driving Machine” tagline.
Forbes reports on that here and suggests that the Vision iNEXT concept car is beginning to redefine the experience as “driving and/or riding”.
It quotes a Volvo official as saying: “One of our aims is to be the supplier of choice for ride-hailing companies. We have deals with Uber and Baidu today. Others may come in future.”
The Swedish manufacturer is also leading calls for a universal safety standard for autonomous car communications.
One of the most eye-catching representations of how the near-future might look is this Dezeen video about Renault’s Ez-Pro concept.
It imagines how goods and services will be delivered in cities via driverless electric robo-pods which can travel either in convoy or independently.
Renault suggests the pods could also function as pop-up shops or food counters.
As well as investing in self-driving, vice chair Chung Eui-sun says the group will electrify 44 models by 2025 and commercialise fuel cell vehicles by 2030.
Since then, the University of Warwick has announced a new Smart City Mobility Centre, including driverless testing facilities…
WMG tweet re new Smart City Mobility Centre
… and businesses are also getting in on the act. For example, private hire company Addison Lee has linked with driverless software specialist Oxbotica to map London’s Canary Wharf in what’s been described as the first steps toward autonomous driving in the capital.
TaxiPoint tweet re mapping Canary Wharf
As to the potential benefits – apart from the advantage to firms of not having to pay drivers – the latest artificial intelligence (AI) modelling shows that self-driving cars can improve traffic flow.
There’s also the phenomenon of catastrophic forgetting to consider. The problem of computers overwriting their parameters when they learn a new task, losing what they previously knew, is one of the biggest barriers to artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Bearing all this in mind, is it premature to declare driverless cars the biggest business opportunity since the internet?
Brands it namechecked included: vehicle manufacturers General Motors and Honda; parts-makers Aptiv, Continental and Denso; internet companies Alphabet and Baidu; semiconductor specialists Ambarella, Nvidia, Xilinx and Mobileye; and software companies Akamai Technologies, Dessault Systems and Hexagon.
