Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Driving Cars
Self-driving cars are good! Aren’t they?
Many of you probably have heard of it already — self-driving cars are no longer fiction. Test vehicles are already on our streets such as the T-Pod, an electrical truck that is commuting between two warehouses from the haulage DB Schenker, a logistic service provider, in Jönköping to deliver goods. Other big players of the automotive industry such as Daimler AG recently announced that an S-class sedan has completed a 62-mile-journey in Germany without a driver. Audi as well showed a huge success, its self-driving car navigated 156 turns of the 12-mile Hill Climb course in Colorado’s Pikes Peak (Rayej, 2014). How far away from a future of complete autonomous driving are we though?
The 5-step system
The Society of Autonomous Engineers (SAE) agreed on a five-step system, whereas each different step stands for a different degree of automation (Fuchs, 2019). To give you a little overview how that looks like, I found you a useful infografic:
Where are we at right know? You guessed it — we are currently on level three. Meaning, self-driving vehicles are already being tested on our streets but within a controlled driving environment. Even though we are not quite there yet — researchers expect autonomous driving to be on level five in 2050 — it is already crucial to discuss whether self-driving cars are safe or not and in general what the pros and cons are.
Advantages vs Disadvantages of self-driving cars
The pros:
- It saves people time. Imagine having a 6-hours ride in front of you, no matter if you’re planning on going on vacation or a business meeting. Instead of concentrating for 6 hours on the streets, which by the way takes a lot of energy as well, you can use those 6 hours to recharge your energy by taking a little nap or even get prepared for your business meeting going trough the scripts one last time or search for your favorite things to do at your vacation destination. Cool or cool?
- It will prevent drunk-driving accidents. Alcohol is a major factor in traffic accidents. Cross your heart! Who has never done it? You enjoy a fun night in a nice pub with your closest friends, you drank one (or 3) beers more than initially planned and still believe that you’re still able to drive these 10 minutes home because you’re such an amazing driver and you will obviously pay extra attention.
And even if not (thumbs up), imagine to never have to worry about that exact issue ever again? Disclaimer: this is not an invitation to get wasted every night just because your car will drive your home.
Total Traffic and Alcohol-Impaired Crash Fatalities
As you can see by means of this table, that’s an issue that should be solved.
- Furthermore, you don’t need to search for parking slots anymore or pay insane prices for parking garages and I mean — how annoying is that? Your car can just drop you where ever, drive back home and pick you up again whenever you wish for.
The cons:
- Job loss in the transportation industry. Of course professions like Taxi or Bus drivers wouldn’t be necessary anymore but I like to look at it from this side: are jobs like that really fulfilling or healthy or even safe? I would try to see a chance within that development, use this chance to go for whatever truly fulfills you. Starting from zero can offer you many opportunities, it’s always a matter of perspective.
- It is difficult to determine fault if accidents would happen. You can’t blame the people sitting in the car, but whom can you blame then?
- Potentially vulnerable to hackers and cyber threats. Which also rises the big question: are self-driving cars actually safe and trustworthy? A recent AAA survey of U.S. drivers indicated that 75% would feel “afraid” of riding in a self-driving car, largely due to concerns about safety (Causevic, 2017). To take some concerns from you, if you share the same thoughts, my next blogpost will focus on how autonomous driving can be secured. I’m only gonna say “machine learning”, for now. ;-)
And these are just very few examples and inputs about autonomous driving. There is so much more to explore and know about this interesting and future relevant topic. After this small introduction I hope your interest is triggered, next time we will dig deeper into how machine learning will make autonomous driving safer. Stay tuned and be more than welcome to follow me on LinkedIn for more facts and insights into this topic!
Best,
Mona
APPANDIX
Rayej, S. (2014). How do self-driving cars work? | Robohub. Retrieved from https://robohub.org/how-do-self-driving-cars-work/
Fuchs, H. (2019). Autonomes Fahren: Ja, wann denn? Retrieved from https://www.dw.com/de/autonome-autos-wann-sind-wir-nur-noch-mitfahrer/a-49593073
Causevic, D. (2017). How Machine Learning Can Enhance Cybersecurity for Autonomous Cars. Retrieved from https://www.toptal.com/insights/innovation/how-machine-learning-can-enhance-cybersecurity-for-autonomous-cars
