There was a plethora of self-driving autonomous announcements during CES. Almost every automaker has presented a self-driving plan. Meanwhile, Tesla jumpstarted the road to autonomy with an over-the-air update to Autopilot which it demoted on surface streets with the current update. There are several races of self-driving cars. There’s the race to have the first technology installed, the first to make autonomous technology affordable and the race to make the first intelligent self-driving car that can be deployed in production vehicles. Each company that touts its self-driving technology has a different approach.
Toyota
Toyota is taking the slow and intelligent approach gradually added new features. The company announced the TRI (Toyota Research Institute) to accelerate machine learning, allowing more and more functions to be assigned to the car and when needed to avoid a crash. Toyota’s connected car framework will be based on the installation of a Data Communication Module (DCM) into a broader range of its vehicles starting with model changes in 2017 in the U.S. market. Toyota will be using data from production vehicles for advanced mapping needed for autonomous driving.
Kia Motors
Kia Motors announced its safety and self-driving road map it calls ‘DRIVE WISE.’ It plans to manufacturer partially-autonomous cars by 2020, and its first fully-autonomous vehicle to market by 2030. It will also introduce a new infotainment interface with gesture controls, fingerprint sensors and smartphone connectivity in 2018. Kia recently received a self-driving license from the state of Nevada.
Nissan Cheaper Mass Market Self-Driving Plans
Renault-Nissan Alliance announced it will launch more than ten models with self-driving tech in the next four years. The alliance says that the autonomous technology will be installed on mass-market cars at affordable prices.
Mereceds-Benz E Class Very Close to Self-Driving with Little Software Change
The Mercedes E-Class recently passed it’s self-driving test has a self-driving license in the state of Nevada for highway driving. Mercedes-Benz launched it all about “me’ feautures with and apps that offer suggestions based on the drivers preferences. The standard-production Mercedes E-Class has most of the technology needed for self-driving testing, except it needed a few software modifications to the DRIVE PILOT control unit.
Ford Self-Driving Further
Ford is tripling its fleet of Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicles this year. Ford claims the company’s fully autonomous vehicle fleet the largest of all automakers and accelerating the development and testing of its virtual driver software in both urban and suburban environments.
Future of Faraday Future
Faraday Future showed a new concept vehicle with self-driving plans that is moving quickly into production.
GM and Lyft Partnership Driving Autonomous
GM announced the joint development of a network of on-demand autonomous vehicles will leverage GM’s deep knowledge of autonomous technology and Lyft’s capabilities in providing a broad choice of ride-sharing services. The Chevy Bolt will have ride-sharing features. GM is working with Mobileye Road Experience Management (REM) to create a continuously updated road map.
Delphi
Delphi announced its Vehicle-to-Everything with demos of rides around the Las Vegas Convention Center showing Vehicle-to-Infrastructure, Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Pedestrian.
Audi & NVIDIA
Audi showed self-driving concepts, new HMI, NVIDIA partnership and Qualcomm connectivity.
Other companies that are in the race for the self-driving car that were not attending or making announcing during CES are Google, Honda/Acura, Tesla and Volvo.
Self-driving cars, however, it is going to take a while reports Yole Développement (Yole).