Ford released images of a new model of its Fusion Hybrid vehicle that's equipped with hardware for self-driving tests, reports Engadget.
A key development with this model of the Fusion, however, is that it looks for the most part like any other car that a driver might find on the road. For autonomous cars to become normalized in the coming years, they will need to be designed in this vein, appealing to existing consumer sensibilities while augmenting them with generally unseen technology.
The new Ford model includes extensive self-driving hardware, including multiple cameras and LIDAR units, along with a powerful computing system to process the data generated. Unlike with past Ford autonomous models or many of those employed by other automakers, these new self-driving Fords place the equipment that allows them to operate autonomously out of sight for a typical user.
The sensors are built into the roof and computers placed in the trunk, rather than adding large protruding sensor arrays to the roof or other parts of the vehicle, or placing the computing hardware in the passenger compartment.
Autonomous cars will need to fit in on the roads in the short term to gain data while sharing the road with traditional cars. Automotive executives have indicated concerns that drivers would seek to take advantage of autonomous cars on shared roads, prompting a call for self-driving vehicles to be unmarked.
Further, as automakers seek to gather data from autonomous tests, they need other vehicles on the road to drive in a normal and regular manner, rather than in some altered way conscious of the self-driving car next to them. Ford and other automakers like Tesla are taking critical steps to normalize the autonomous car on the roads.
BI Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on self-driving cars that examines the major strides automakers and tech companies have made to overcome the barriers currently preventing fully autonomous cars from hitting the market. Further, the report examines global survey results showing where fully autonomous cars are highly desired.
Here are some key takeaways from the report:
- Three barriers have been preventing fully autonomous cars from hitting the road: 1) high technological component prices; 2) varying degrees of consumer trust in the technology; and 3) relatively nonexistent regulations. Howev
er, in the past six months, there have been many advances in overcoming these barriers. - Technology has been improving as new market entrants find innovative ways to expand on existing fully autonomous car technology. As a result, the price of the components required for fully autonomous cars has been dropping.
- Consumer trust in fully autonomous vehicle technology has increased in the past two years.
- California became the first US state to propose regulations. California's regulations stipulate that a fully autonomous car must have a driver behind the wheel at all times, discouraging Google's and Uber's idea of a driverless taxi system.
In full, the report:
- Examines consumer trust in fully autonomous vehicles
- Identifies technological advancements that have been made in the industry
- Analyzes the cost of fully autonomous technology and identifies how cost is being reduced
- Explains the current regulations surrounding fully autonomous cars
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