Photo: Delphi
In case you haven't looked at the calendar lately, August is almost over. That means we've only got four months to go until this year is over, which adds to just 28 months until 2019 is upon us. For a cat, that's close to an eternity. For the automotive industry, though, it's a pretty short time.
So many carmakers and other companies involved in developing self-driving technologies have set 2020 as a deadline, that people have started to accept the fact that we won't be seeing vehicles drive on their own sooner than that. Now, though, Delphi and Mobileye have announced they plan to cut that schedule by one year and offer the technology as quickly as 2019.
Well, this might just be an attempt to make the headlines as the two companies have lost the limelight lately, with lots of the big names in the industry starting their own similar programs. It could be that Delphi (an American auto supplier) and Mobileye (an Israeli company specializing in self-driving technology) are well aware they will have to push the deadline further ahead along the line, but they just needed the
extra attention right now.
The consortium promises "Level 4 and 5" autonomous cars, which means vehicles that can handle themselves from the start and until the end of the journey, with Level 4 still needing some assistance in case of adverse circumstances. In other words, Level 5 cars could just as well do without the steering wheel.
This announcement comes at a time when other players in the market aren't being so optimistical about the timeframe for the introduction of self-driving cars. The most positive seems to be Tesla, an old partner of Mobileye with whom it worked on its Autopilot until less than two months ago.
According to Spectrum IEEE, Delphi and Mobileye have made it public that they will show off their version of autonomous driving hardware and software in January next year at CES. Depending on what we see then, we'll be able to get an idea whether the 2019 date is doable or not. Either way, this announcement can only help hurry things up with the rest of the companies involved who will want to keep up the pace.
Well, this might just be an attempt to make the headlines as the two companies have lost the limelight lately, with lots of the big names in the industry starting their own similar programs. It could be that Delphi (an American auto supplier) and Mobileye (an Israeli company specializing in self-driving technology) are well aware they will have to push the deadline further ahead along the line, but they just needed the
extra attention right now.
The consortium promises "Level 4 and 5" autonomous cars, which means vehicles that can handle themselves from the start and until the end of the journey, with Level 4 still needing some assistance in case of adverse circumstances. In other words, Level 5 cars could just as well do without the steering wheel.
This announcement comes at a time when other players in the market aren't being so optimistical about the timeframe for the introduction of self-driving cars. The most positive seems to be Tesla, an old partner of Mobileye with whom it worked on its Autopilot until less than two months ago.
According to Spectrum IEEE, Delphi and Mobileye have made it public that they will show off their version of autonomous driving hardware and software in January next year at CES. Depending on what we see then, we'll be able to get an idea whether the 2019 date is doable or not. Either way, this announcement can only help hurry things up with the rest of the companies involved who will want to keep up the pace.
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