 News from the Level 4 (1)
| Robot taxi stranded in the fog . . . |
The five levels are always explained so nicely, but never quite correctly. Level 3 is still fairly straightforward: the car, or rather, the manufacturer, takes responsibility and gives the former
driver a short period of time to regain control.
The time frame is so tight that you can't really take your hands off the wheel. Driving without a driver is unthinkable. That's then different at level 4. Here, you can also imagine removing the
safety driver and, for example, a folded-down driver's seat.
But there are restrictions, such as the options for interrupting the travel. Since the help will likely take a little longer now, the vehicle will move itself out of the way if at all possible. So Level 4 doesn't
have to work in all weather conditions.
There are certainly experts who claim that Level 5 will likely never be achieved, not just for private vehicles, but also for shuttles, which essentially refers to self-driving taxis. So,
in principle, one works towards Level 4.
It is also interesting to note that the development aims for autonomous driving have changed somewhat recently. While the focus was on reducing the relief of strain on private drivers not long ago,
it has been on commercial road transport for quite some time now.
However, only a few companies manage to make their vehicles look reasonably good despite all the sensors, which is clearly not the case with a Waymo robotaxi, for example.However, only a few companies manage to
make their vehicles look reasonably good despite all the sensors, which is clearly not the case with a Waymo robotaxi, for example. Something like that couldn't be offered to private customers, for example.
It depends on the number of sensors perceived as necessary. It seems that all of them except Tesla rely on what they call 'triple redundancy', that is, lidar, radar, and camera. However, we dare to doubt whether it is really
that simple for two to outvote the one who disagrees.
But it hasn't stopped at just that one lidar sensor on the front end of the roof. It used to be very expensive at over €10,000, but now costs around €5,000 and fits much more elegantly to the body.
However, it is now expected that there will be significantly more than one of these sensors. Once the design requirements are defined, people start suggesting one at the front, one at the back, and if possible, another one
at every corner, which, of course, makes it difficult to integrate into the design.
But is it the latter that’s driving the shift toward the shuttle, or the high costs? It’s probably more about the opportunity to recoup those costs. Perhaps the shortage of taxi drivers also plays a bigger role.
Let’s see when the ongoing struggle to recruit truck drivers begins to have an impact on larger-scale public initiatives in the field of autonomous driving as well. When it comes to electrification,
there's actually quite a lot going on, for example, in the area of charging.
As already mentioned, autonomous driving is making progress in the shuttle sector, while in the private sector, the focus is currently more on permissible speeds; and when you look at the volume of
developments, it seems we won’t be able to avoid using several types of sensor technology.
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