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News Roundup: Volkswagen Shows Off Sedric the Level-5 Autonomous Car in China, Major Players Weigh In on California’s Proposed Driverless Testing Policies, and More

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A look at some of the biggest news stories to come out of the driverless and connected-car world this past week:

Major players weigh in on California’s proposed self-driving testing policies

Representatives from major players in the autonomous drive game, such as Apple, Uber, Tesla Motors and Ford, have been sending comments to California officials on what changes they would like to see made in the Golden State’s proposed policies for testing self-driving vehicles. In particular, Apple wants to change the way companies report “disengagements,” which we assume refers to accidents or collisions. Tesla wrote that they disapprove of the idea of barring testing of vehicles that weigh more than 10,000 pounds. Uber said it should be allowed for people to pay to ride in an autonomous vehicle with a driver behind the wheel in order to provide the company with honest feedback. Tesla also warned that restrictive policies would encourage developers to leave the state. Read more from Business Insider.

 

What to do with the ‘ocean of data’ connected and driverless cars will create each day?

Barclays analyst Brian Johnson said recently that as more and more cars are outfitted with sensors, cameras and LiDAR, the more data they will begin to generate. In fact, a single autonomous car will be capable of generating as much as 100 gigabytes of data per second. “Assuming the entire U.S. fleet of vehicles - 260 million vehicles - has a similar data generation, it would create an ocean of data. To put it in context, one hour’s worth of raw data across the entire U.S. fleet would be around 5,800 exabytes in size,” Johnson said. One exabyte is equivalent to one million terrabytes. That presents a wealth of problems when it comes to the storage, management and analysis of that much data. Many big companies like Tesla, Delphi and Intel have ideas about how to tackle this problem. One idea is “edge analytics,” where information is analyzed close to the sensor itself rather than being sent elsewhere through the cloud. Read more from CNBC.

 

Volkswagen wows with ‘Sedric’ Level 5 autonomous concept car in Shanghai

We first saw “Sedric” the Level-5 autonomous car in March, when Volkswagen showed off renderings of the concept car. Now, Volkswagen is showing off the real thing. The company recently took Sedric to China to show it off at the Auto Shanghai 2017 show. The car is capable of full Level-5 self-driving, and in fact executives said all a passenger has to do it climb in, press a single button to start the car, and then control it throughout the rest of the trip via voice commands. The car has no brakes, controls or pedals. In fact, the car features no “cockpit” at all. See more from Automotive Tires and Parts.

Photo: Interior of Volkswagen’s ‘Sedric’ car / Credit: Volkswagen

 

GM Cadillac

Study: Self-Driving Cars Will Disrupt Auto Sales More Than Car-Sharing Services

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Jennifer van der Kleut

A new study by Boston Consulting Group suggests car manufacturers should be more worried about the introduction of self-driving cars than of car-sharing services like Uber and Lyft.

According to the study, as reported by Reuters, North American auto manufacturers can expect to lose about 52,000 car sales a year to people who decide to opt instead for hailing rides through car-sharing services. However, the study also says they will gain back 44,000 of those sales by selling cars to the car-sharing services.

And, major manufacturers like Ford and General Motors (GM) are reacting smartly to such predictions and investing in car-sharing companies to recoup some of that lost revenue. For example, GM made the major announcement a few weeks ago that it was investing half a billion in Lyft.

GM is also looking even farther forward to its own ride-sharing service using its own cars, to be called Maven. Maven is already operating in Ann Arbor, Michigan-a smart decision considering it’s a major college town where kids like to party, where they may not have the funds to own their own cars, and where parking can sometimes be scarce-and planning to add New York and Chicago to the list soon.

Therefore, the study concludes that self-driving cars will be much more of a “game-changer” than car sharing, with the biggest impact being felt around 2027, Reuters explains.

Self-driving car technology will “trigger the convergence of car-sharing and ride-hailing.”

In other words, the onset of the technology will act as the biggest encouragement for people to ditch the idea of owning a car altogether.

“…Self-driving cars will change the game, erasing the distinction between car-sharing and ride-hailing while providing users with a significant edge in the total cost of ownership,” says Reuters.

Some reports, like one from Barclays published just last month, predict the cost of hailing a self-driving car could be as low as 29 cents per mile, much cheaper than the cost of buying and maintaining one’s own car, not to mention filling it with gas regularly.

Experts say we can expect to see which predictions are accurate within the next five to 10 years.