Autonomous Cars Are Coming Faster Than Expected

I'm probably more excited by autonomous cars than most and it's becoming more and more every day. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, made the following comment: "We’re going to end up with complete autonomy, and I think we will have complete autonomy in approximately two years.”

That would put the autonomous car done at around the end of 2017. This is the earliest prediction I have seen coming from any reliable source (including manufacturers). How automated will the car be? Well, he said level 4 which the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) defines as "The vehicle is designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip. Such a design anticipates that the driver will provide destination or navigation input, but is not expected to be available for control at any time during the trip. This includes both occupied and unoccupied vehicles."

Elon Musk adds “When I say level 4, I mean level 4 autonomy with the probability of an accident is less than that of person"

Now there are rumors that Alphabet (or Google) is partnering up with Ford to develop their own autonomous vehicle (and may be announced at CES next year). Will autonomous cars be out before the popular 2020 predictions? I really hope so.

There is no doubt that autonomous vehicles are the future. When I discuss this with most people, they have many doubts, sometimes almost to the point way they don't want to see it succeed (citing they like driving or don't believe it's possible). Road injury is the ninth leading cause of death in the world; 1.24 million people die in road crashes each year and 20-50 million people are injured or disabled. I think that, alone, is enough reason to warrant autonomous cars (sorry car enthusiasts). And that's not even mentioning the environmental and efficiency advantages. Of course there are concerns with liability and how to replace the jobs that will be eliminated with autonomous driving.

I genuinely hope future generations are dumbfounded that we once drove cars ourselves and caused millions of deaths each year.