Illustration of the levels of vehicle autonomy based on the definition from the Society of Automotive Engineers. | Source: IDTechEx
More than 90% of road traffic accidents happen because of human error, so the importance of autonomy and its potential safety benefits cannot be overlooked. IDTechEx this week released its report “Autonomous Cars, Robotaxis and Sensors 2024-2044,” which provides outlooks for the next twenty years in the autonomous driving market.
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) can be categorized using the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) levels of autonomy, ranging from 0 to 5. At Level 0 are completely unautomated vehicles, which are rarely produced nowadays, according to the research firm.
At Level 5 are completely autonomous vehicles, made without steering wheels, pedals, or any conventional control. In these vehicles, humans would act entirely as passengers and would never need to interfere with the car’s functions.
The AVs on the roads today sit somewhere in Levels 2, 3, and 4, said the IDTechEx report.
As the industry moves into a new era of autonomous driving technologies, safety benchmarks and standards are evolving, forcing car companies to adopt new technologies to keep their cars competitive. In the U.S., for example, more than 50% of vehicles in 2022 had Level 2 autonomy.
This includes cars with some automated driving features like adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist. Many OEMs now have these features as options, if not as standard, alongside automatic emergency braking.
While some Level 2 systems are more advanced, most require the driver’s attention with both hands on the wheel. Tesla, General Motors, and Ford are some leaders in this technology, IDTechEx said. All Tesla models are produced with Level 2 autonomy.
As of 2023, Ford has been allowed to move its Level 2+, hands-free BlueCruise technology onto roads in Germany and the U.K., but its public use is limited to a few specific stretches of motorway.
Volkswagen has also been dipping its toes into autonomous technology. The company has been deploying Mobileye‘s Road Book Technology, using data collected from Mobileye-powered vehicles over many years.
Mobileye uses this data to build community-sourced HD maps, which contribute to more advanced and capable Level 2 advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) while paving a route to higher levels of autonomy in the future.
Level 3 autonomy has been emerging in some European countries, the U.S., and China in recent years. With Level 3 autonomy, drivers can take their hands off the wheel and their minds off the road under certain conditions, said IDTechEx.
When it comes to consumer automotive technology, Honda implemented Level 3 vehicles into the public domain in Japan in 2021. In addition, the Mercedes S-Class with Level 3 features is now deployed in Germany and some U.S. states.
To keep safety as a top priority, however, vehicles using the features are limited to around 4 mph (6.4 kph) and are required to warn drivers 10 seconds in advance of any need for them to reengage.
Despite these advancements, Level 3 technologies remain at the bleeding edge of consumer automotive tech. Some members of the public, however, already have access to Level 4 transportation in a few cities. This technology has been deployed to provide autonomous taxi services.
In the U.S., leaders in this space include Alphabet’s AV division Waymo, GM subsidiary Cruise, Amazon subsidiary Zoox, and Hyundai-backed Motional.
While these services are currently limited to a handful of cities in the U.S. and China, IDTechEx said it believes there is now a safe and scalable pathway to mass deployment of these vehicles. Despite this, it said Level 4 technology in private vehicles is still a long time out, with the industry and lawmakers needing to get far more comfortable with Level 3 vehicles first.
Autonomous trucks are another example of autonomy hitting the roads. IDTechEx predicted that prices for these vehicles will decrease globally as they become more mainstream over the next 20 years, while it predicted that sales will increase exponentially leading up to 2044.
IDTechEx said autonomous trucks could be a solution to ongoing safety concerns, driver management problems, and high operational costs. Partially autonomous trucks could provide relief for future drivers, who would otherwise need to stay highly alert while driving for long periods.
Features like automatic emergency braking will keep the truck aware of its surroundings, helping to prevent collisions, said the research firm.
In all, autonomous vehicles are seeing constant, steady progress, but they still face barriers, such as uncertainty around liability when the vehicle is operating driver-free and hesitancy from lawmakers. IDTechEx predicted that it could take 15 to 20 years for higher levels of autonomy to become widespread.
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