How long will we have to wait before we can get into a real driverless car?

Editor's note: This article comes from the quantum bit (Id:qbitai), Author: Li Shang, Annie. 36 Krypton is authorized to reproduce.

How far are we from unmanned technology? When will consumers and investors see driverless cars on the market?

The answer to this difficult question depends on what your so-called "unmanned", "consumer" and "market" mean.

What does "unmanned" mean--depends on the level.

"L4" or "L5" can often be seen in articles that are related to unmanned driving. These levels, developed by the International Institute of Automated Engineers (SAE International), have been widely accepted worldwide. In simple terms:

The L2 system is an advanced driver-assisted system that can control the steering wheel and brakes in a given environment, but is not unmanned.

The L3 system can indeed drive a car, but only in limited circumstances, requiring the driver to take control of the vehicle at any time.

The L4 system is a "highly automated system". In practice, it can accomplish most of the tasks that human drivers can accomplish, but only in limited geographical areas-that is, the area where maps are well developed.

The L5 system is a mature unmanned system that can be automatically driven anywhere, with a driving skill comparable to an experienced old driver.

What is needed is that the current level of self-driving cars is set by the system manufacturer and has not been evaluated by a third-party agency.

So, when will these different levels of cars be available? in what manner.

L2 and L3: have appeared

General Motors ' Super Cruise and Tesla's newest autopilot are all critical L3 systems.

Super Cruise This system consists of a front-end camera, background map database and Trimble developed high-precision GPS, can be in error two meters to determine the location of the car. Tesla's Autopilot 2.0 system has 8 cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors and enhanced forward millimeter wave radar, which can work in inclement weather such as rain, snow, fog, dust, etc.

In addition, Tesla will also be able to configure the vehicle with the data collected in the on-board computer processing sensor, which is 40 times times the autopilot 1.0.

Both systems can only drive cars under specific systems, but they also require human drivers to get control at all times.

GM and Tesla were reluctant to label their systems L3 because L3 was controversial, the first to say that cars could drive automatically. The L3 system raises an important question: In the event of an emergency, the distracted human being can take control of the car in a short amount of time. That is why companies such as Ford and Volvo say they will skip L3 and develop L4 systems directly.

Audi introduced a high-speed automatic driving system in a new generation of A8, known as the Audi AI traffic congestion driving system (Audi traffic jam pilot). Audi says the vehicle can be 60km/h and will enter China in 2018.

On the sensor array, the body is equipped with radars, front-view cameras, millimeter-wave radar, and the first 4-line lidar, which can be produced to meet the requirements of the vehicle. In addition, there is a central driving auxiliary control system (ZFAS), zFAS by Audi and Delphi, Nvidia, TTTech, mobileye cooperation, with the NVIDIA GPU, Mobileye EyeQ series of visual chips, as well as communication module, is the A8 computing hub.

Audi A8 is more advanced than autopilot or Super cruise. It's hard to say: But to be honest, literally, it's very similar to Super cruise. But if the standard is met, Audi is still willing to call it the L3 system.

Audi A8 is the world's first L3-level automatic driving volume production vehicle L4: close at hand

At present, GM, Ford, Toyota, Volvo are developing L4 system, Toyota plans to launch L4 in 2020, GM, Ford, Volvo, said 2021 mass production. It is noteworthy that Delphi, together with Mobileye and Intel, will collaborate on the development of the L4 Central sensing positioning and Planning (CSLP) automatic driving system, which is expected to start production in 2019. Cars that use the system may be on the road in a year or two.

Some may be on the road even faster. GM's first L4 auto car will be ready for production, but GM is not ready to sell to consumers. Instead, they will be serving in a limousine company like Lyft. You may be the first to ride a L4 driverless car through a limousine service and buy one for a few years.

Other potential markets include Tesla and Daimler, which will launch the L4 system by the end of 2020, which boasts Mercedes-Benz brands and heavy trucks. But most consumers may have to wait 2021 or 2022 years to buy L4 driverless cars, which will appear in the form of alternatives to ordinary cars and trucks.

Tesla autopilot system

By the same, Google's unmanned vehicle company Waymo. In Google's October 13 release of the "Road to complete automatic driving" report, Waymo said at present in the solution where I am, what is around, what will happen next, what to do these four questions, that is, in doing L4 automatic driving related research.

Waymo the Fiat-Chrysler Pacifica model as an example, the sensors are used to give the unmanned vehicle a 360-degree view, the farthest "visible" 300-meter object, three rugby fields away. In addition, the body was equipped with software that Waymo spent 8 years developing, and trained the software through billions of miles of simulated driving and more than 3.5 million miles of road test.

WAYMO Sensor distribution Map L5: Major challenges

Bryan Salesky, the CEO of the Ford-owned unmanned software company Argo AI, is already a veteran of Google's driverless car program (now Alphabet's subsidiary, Waymo).

In a recent post in Medium, he has published some sober thinking, hoping to see the widespread adoption of fully automated vehicles as soon as possible:

"We are still in the early stages of turning driverless cars into reality," he said. Those who think driverless cars can be fully popularized now or within a few years are not fully aware of the status of the technology, or have not fully considered the security of the technology deployment. For those who have long been involved in this technology development, we will tell you that the problem is still difficult because the system is very complex. ”

At present, the public, such as in the development of L5 unmanned technology, plans to achieve L5 class unmanned vehicles in 2021. Nvidia is also open to automatic driving end-to-end platform Nvidia DRIVE, which wants to help the depot achieve L5-level automatic driving within 10 years.

But no matter when we communicate with experts, their answers are the same as Salesky: L4 Driverless cars can be automatically driven in a place with perfect map data when the weather is good, which can be achieved in the short term. But unless someone gets a major breakthrough, L5 is still far away. Summary: How far unmanned cars are.

No one drives far from us. To summarize the above, we can sort out the following timeline:

2018: L3 's Audi A8 drives automatically within the speed 60km/h, and can ride L4 driverless cars in big cities through Lyft and other limousine services.

2020: Toyota launches L4 's mass production vehicle, Tesla will launch the L4 system before this.

2021: L4 's GM, Ford and Volvo began to launch a mass production vehicle, which could initially be an expensive option for luxury cars.

2024 years or so: L4 Driverless cars may be widely available, at least as a selection of many mainstream cars. By then, L4 's regional limitations may no longer be worth worrying, as 3D maps have already covered most of the developed regions. But the system may still not have the best performance in extreme weather.

N years later: the first real L5 driverless car will appear.

Long story short: L4 Driverless cars do come soon, but there are limits for a while, and cars that can drive like human drivers may be far away.