- The advent of the automated car has led the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to adopt a hierarchy of classifications in order to categorize the vehicle you may be driving in the future. Wikipedia has a quick summary:
- Level 0: Automated system has no vehicle control, but may issue warnings.
- Level 1: Driver must be ready to take control at any time. Automated system may include features such as Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), Parking Assistance with automated steering, and Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA) Type II in any combination.
- Level 2: The driver is obliged to detect objects and events and respond if the automated system fails to respond properly. The automated system executes accelerating, braking, and steering. The automated system can deactivate immediately upon takeover by the driver.
- Level 3: Within known, limited environments (such as freeways), the driver can safely turn their attention away from driving tasks, but must still be prepared to take control when needed.
- Level 4: The automated system can control the vehicle in all but a few environments such as severe weather. The driver must enable the automated system only when it is safe to do so. When enabled, driver attention is not required.
- Level 5: Other than setting the destination and starting the system, no human intervention is required. The automatic system can drive to any location where it is legal to drive and make its own decisions.
TechRepublic presents an overview and analysis:
So why are the levels important? They serve as general guidelines for how technologically advanced a vehicle is. In terms of what consumers need to know, Thilo Koslowski, former analyst for Gartner, thinks that ultimately, there are three stages that will be relevant: “automated, autonomous, and driverless.” It’s important to distinguish between “autonomous” and “driverless,” he said: “driverless is a more advanced stage of autonomous.”
But while drivers themselves may be less concerned with the distinctions, the differences could be significant when it comes to issues like car insurance, which is expected to change radically in the era of self-driving cars.
KPMG, a consulting firm, has issued a report on how the car insurance business will be affected, since the number of accidents are predicted to go down 80% by 2040. The different levels are important because they “change the risk profile of the car,” according to KPMG expert Jerry Albright. “Insurance companies need to understand how these new capabilities affect driving risk.” Joe Schneider, managing director at KPMG, put it this way: “It’s like a baby, going from crawling to walking to running.”
Albright said, “The car becomes safer and safer as it moves towards fully-autonomous driving.”
But Jamais Cascio reports in NewScientist (4 March 2017, paywall) that the assertion may actually be false – some stages actually regress:
Level 3 allows the driver to safely turn attention away on some road types, but to be ready to take over – and it’s what is up next for commercially available autonomous cars. Audi is poised to launch one by 2018, with Nissan, Honda and Kia to follow.
However, Ford has cast doubt on the wisdom of this road map. In tests of level 3 systems, it has found that drivers lose “situational awareness”, sometimes falling asleep. The problem persists even with buzzers, vibrating seats and a second engineer to watch the first.
As a result, Ford technical lead Raj Nair has restated the company’s desire to skip level 3. It aims to make fully autonomous cars by 2021, without pedals or steering wheels, for use within a predefined area: level 4 autonomy. The intent is to create a vehicle for ride-sharing or ride-hailing. Passengers would be free to chat, use phones or nap without worrying about taking control… because they can’t take control.
And, of course, that last sentence may freak some people out. Like me. Even though you also can’t take control of a bus, or a train. But in those cases, they’re an act of faith in your fellow human, someone you can empathize with, even chat with. Not so much the computer running the car, though, especially if you’ve heard that certain Big Data techniques can result in conclusions which, although correct, are not really explainable, even by the algorithm’s coders and creators.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. Will there be underground games involving messing with the traffic patterns that’ll evolve from automated cars? On the other hand, will it be harder to sabotage automated vehicles, i.e. the bomb in the boot trick which is seen from time to time?
Here comes the future – hang on tight.
