Winterthur, December 2018 – One of the most dynamic trends in automotive engineering is autonomous driving – and the transition to this new technology is set to usher in decisive changes to global mobility in the coming years and decades. All over the world, Kistler is helping to shape advances in this area by supporting manufacturers and designers with vehicle development and safety technologies.
Many people associate the concept of autonomous driving with a revolutionary change. But in actual fact, it is another stage in the gradual evolution of the automobile. Driver assistance systems already ensure greater safety and enhanced comfort while driving, and some models now feature pilot functions for limited types of use (on expressways) or speed ranges (up to 40 or 60 km/h). So the transition from assisted driving to fully automated and autonomous mobility is not an abrupt change but a gradual one, with stages such as partially automated and highly automated driving in between.
Analysts and industry-watchers expect that series versions of fully self-driving robot cars will be available or in actual use by 2020 – in less than two years' time! It should not be forgotten that this is a highly lucrative market which is generating new business models alongside the new technologies: for example, sales amounting to hundreds of billions are forecast for future delivery and transportation services based on driverless vehicles. This makes it easy to understand why IT-driven players such as delivery or transportation providers want their share of the market alongside conventional automobile manufacturers. It will be fascinating to see how the race to implement autonomous mobility develops, for passenger cars as well as commercial vehicles: startups and companies from the Asian region (including China in particular) will also want to have their say.