The report, Autonomous Vehicles Land, Water, Air 2015-2035, is, according to IDTechEx, an examination of the current state of autonomous technology being put to use in all manner of vehicles from cars, airplanes and construction equipment to lawnmowers and vacuums.
Peter Harrop, chairman of IDTechEx and co-author of the report, emceed the webinar. Harrop, who took care to note that he and his staff were researchers and not enthusiasts, cast a dim light on the prospect of autonomous vehicles zipping down roadways anytime soon.
“The freight train of cars on the freeway where the cars are only a few centimeters apart hurtling along at 200 kilometers per hour … I think it’s going to be a while,” he said, adding that the “technology is nowhere near ready.”
IDTechEx research estimates that driverless cars, as have been popularized by many media outlets in recent months, are further afield than recent headlines let on. The firm’s data indicates a slow rollout of the technology in passenger cars and suggests it will not be until 2024 or 2025 that autonomous vehicles will be sold in any significant number. Furthermore, IDTechEx predicts it won’t be until 2030 that driverless cars appear on roads in the U.K.
There are several reasons for a slower than commonly believed transition to autonomous driving. First, Harrop said, the technology still has a long way to go.
“At the moment they’re nowhere near ready,” Harrop said, using as an example a hypothetical policeman standing in the road directing traffic. Harrop said that as of now, autonomous vehicle technology wouldn’t be able to recognize the police officer as anything other than a person that it ought not drive into while being entirely unable to understand the officer’s hand gestures telling drivers which direction they should go.
Furthermore, Harrop said their research suggests there is little demand for driverless car technology at a real, practical scale.
“You don’t actually see riots in the street from people saying, ‘I want to have an autonomous car.’”
Harrop did say that he believes incremental autonomous features might help sell vehicles, but such features would likely be as well used as current auto amenities like cruise control.
“Some of the primitive autonomy helps to sell the car but you don’t often use it,” Harrop said. “When did you last use the cruise control on your car? Similarly, this year so many cars can automatically park. But a significant number of people say it’s too slow or frightens them too much. Autonomy may help sell the car but may not be used.”
The early drivers of autonomous vehicle technology, Harrop said, will be industrial, mining, construction, agricultural and military uses. It’s in these fields where autonomy already has a significant presence and the technology will continue to develop there, thanks largely to very specific purposes to which autonomous vehicles can be put to use.
Similarly, things such as truly autonomous lawn mowers and vacuums, including the Dyson 360 Eye, are specific-use robots that incorporate much of the same technology automakers hope to feature in passenger cars.
Due to a combination of factors including consumer disinterest, insufficiently advanced technology and governments lacking funds to build dedicated autonomous vehicle infrastructure, Harrop said their research indicates that despite a substantial hype curve that has been building around driverless cars, the reality is that roadways full of robot cars is still largely a fantasy.
“In terms of dreams, we’re not short of dreams,” Harrop said. But, he added later, “We’re going to enter a period of disillusionment [on autonomous cars].”
