MIT says self-driving vehicles will be a mandated safety feature.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Automated driving capability will eventually join seatbelts and airbags as a government-mandated safety feature in your car.

So says MIT's Technology Review, which notes that European car makers including Volkswagen and BMW are well down the road to delivering various driverless features, and will add them incrementally over the years, starting with electronic co-pilots that assist with safety and convenience tasks such as parallel parking.

"'Driverless' technology will initially require a driver," the MIT story says. "And it will creep into everyday use much as airbags did: first as an expensive option in luxury cars, but eventually as a safety feature required by governments."

As the story notes, VW and fellow German car maker BMW are among those demonstrating driverless cars. While Google has received plenty of headlines for its own demonstration version, the Europeans have been hard at work, it points out.

VW sent an Audi TTS racing up Pikes Peak in 2010, sans human hands. BMW already offers optional features including blind spot alerts and night vision assistance that detects those hard-to-see pedestrians, for $1,350 and $2,600, respectively. It plans to add several automated features to its upcoming i3 series of electric cars, including "adaptive cruise control," which slows the car as traffic builds. One high end Mercedes-Benz alerts a driver when he or she is leaving a lane, and helps steer the car back.

The market for "driver assistance" features was $10 billion last year according to ABI Research, and will leap to $130 billion by 2016 as they play a greater role in avoiding traffic accidents, the story notes.

Free Cars

To many people, putting "driverless" and "safety" in the same sentence will seem oxymoronic. The odd coupling will instead conjure up nightmare visions of anything but "safe" - perhaps of an empty vehicle careening helter-skelter down the highway.

I believe that this technology will indeed have its day, full-on. To help usher it in, why not sell the car as a service, eh, vehicle? As I've said in previous SmartPlanet posts, with cars morphing into digital devices on wheels, vendors could sell them as they do mobile phones today. Provide the car for "free" when the customer commits to, say, two years of service.

The price would depend on levels of service. A basic package might include GPS, under-the-hood diagnostics and onboard Internet. Somewhere in the mix could be electricity for electric vehicles, and fuel economy assistance. A deluxe package could include the whole shebang: driverless operation of the vehicle. Then you could watch the Super Bowl streamed live to the console screen - Deluxe would include a service called Broadband Blaster, which gets you more than your average cyber surf experience, you see.

Utilities, Internet companies, telecom companies, even traditional car companies pray tell, would vie for the business. You could be just as likely to get your car from, say, Pacific Gas & Electric as from the Ford dealership next to the mall. Or from Comcast or Vodafone.

While I'm on this line of thought, which admittedly resides somewhere between reality and flight of fancy (although closer to the former): Prepare for the Apple iCar or the Google SearchMobile. The forays by those two companies into telecommunications crescendoed with them offering phones. As the Net now meets transportation, wouldn't a next logical step be for Apple and Google to slap together rubber, glass and steel (or carbon fiber or whatever)? Toonces the Driving Cat, make way for Moe the Motoring Mouse Device.

The auto and Internet industries are on a convergence track that will more than mirror the ongoing universal marriage of the Internet and media. If Big Brother is going to mandate the technology, then we might as well get creative with the business model.

http://www.smartplan...-your-car/12368

[slim 1,530]

Of course it will. Someday the government will mandate we can't take a ####### without some kind of safety feature.

They do not trust us.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Gotta laugh at the ** site smartplanet on this one.

Supporting safety while building up corporate empires at the same time.

No room to complain anymore about those EVIL corporations.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Gotta laugh at the ** site smartplanet on this one.

Supporting safety while building up corporate empires at the same time.

No room to complain anymore about those EVIL corporations.

If you had the reading comprehension of at least a third grader, you would have noticed on the second line that prediction comes from MIT, for starters.

And then if you had any inkling about laws you would understand that requiring cars to have added safety features saves lives and money. You can whine that wearing a seatbelt is infringing on your liberties, but no one really cares because what matters is we won't be spending as much keeping your sorry #### alive on a ventilator because you felt liberated to not wear your seat belt.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

If you had the reading comprehension of at least a third grader, you would have noticed on the second line that prediction comes from MIT, for starters.

And then if you had any inkling about laws you would understand that requiring cars to have added safety features saves lives and money. You can whine that wearing a seatbelt is infringing on your liberties, but no one really cares because what matters is we won't be spending as much keeping your sorry #### alive on a ventilator because you felt liberated to not wear your seat belt.

really? it comes from MIT? You sure about that?

The author seems to be really good at mentioning MIT, but yet doesn't link to a proper source at all. Poor journalism on their part. Especially when you get down to the fact that the author uses "I" in the article as well, which is extremely poor journalism.

The other half of that being, is the author gives their opinion in the article and states their opinion as such. They make suggestions on what they'd like to see done, not what MIT wants to see done.

I guess your ability to read isn't exactly up to par with mine, now is it?

[xebec 195]

You can whine that wearing a seatbelt is infringing on your liberties, but no one really cares because what matters is we won't be spending as much keeping your sorry #### alive on a ventilator because you felt liberated to not wear your seat belt.

This would not be a problem for either of us if so many "Americans" weren't quivering tubs of jelly that expected the nanny state to take care of every aspect of their lives. I should be able to drive without wearing a seatbelt, and you should never have to pay for any of my medical needs.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

I'll give you my steering wheel when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

really? it comes from MIT? You sure about that?

The author seems to be really good at mentioning MIT, but yet doesn't link to a proper source at all. Poor journalism on their part. Especially when you get down to the fact that the author uses "I" in the article as well, which is extremely poor journalism.

from Technology Review (MIT):

The DOT plans to decide whether to require V2V systems in 2013—and it wants plenty of data to back up its decision. If the agency does mandate that automakers begin installing V2V systems in all new vehicles, the first cars with the technology would arrive in showrooms around 2018. Some automakers are hoping the government will step in, since the more cars are equipped with vehicle-to-vehicle communications, the more effective such systems will be.

"If only a few cars around you have this technology, it's not going to help much in improving safety," says GM's Boules. "A mandate would definitely expedite the rollout."

So like good little Libertarian fanboi, you saw the word 'mandate' and had a conniption fit. The auto industry seems to be in favor of a mandate. Maybe you had some bad experiences with man-dates and that's why you react so violently to the word.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Mister Fancypants

[Darnell 8,479]

2018? cool - prolly not nationwide till 2021 - i've some time to retrofit my volvo fleet, then. yay !

[Obama 2012 1,714]

So like good little Libertarian fanboi, you saw the word 'mandate' and had a conniption fit. The auto industry seems to be in favor of a mandate. Maybe you had some bad experiences with man-dates and that's why you react so violently to the word.

You shouldn't laugh, you're the one who seems to have "mommy-dates" around here it would seem from past experiences, especially when dealing with other men.

As far as the "auto industry seems to be in favor"

How the hell do you get that from "Some automakers?"

That could easily just be one like Suzuki and Ferrari and everyone else doesn't care left. All of a sudden that's the entire auto-industry?

Again, your own comprehension fails!

You want to know who's usually in favor of ####### like this, it's not usually the auto industry, it's the insurance industry. They love any "safety" device that saves them money at the end of the day. Do you really think "seat belt laws" are there because the government is trying to save us? Hardly. It's all about Dollars and Cents with the insurance lobby in Washington, as is with the mandates of most safety features.