Self-Driving Vehicles Will Hit the Highways Within a Decade – Study
As manufacturers and shippers adopt robot labor and e-tail giant Amazon ponders delivery drones, we all may be less than a generation away from a world of self-driving cars.
A new study from research and analysis firm IHS, Emerging Technologies: Autonomous Cars—Not If, But When, predicts that self-driving cars with driver-control ability will be available around the world before 2025.
Exclusively self-driving cars (SDCs) should hit the roads around 2030, the IHS Automotive study says.
Worldwide SDC sales should grow from almost 230,000 in 2025 to 11.8 million in 2035, with 7 million of the vehicles including both driver and autonomous control and 4.8 million operating only autonomously, IHS forecasts.
Sometime after 2050, nearly all vehicles in use will be self-driving cars or self-driving commercial vehicles, the study predicts.
“There are several benefits from self-driving cars to society, drivers and pedestrians,” says Egil Juliussen, principal analyst for infotainment and autonomous driver assisted systems at IHS Automotive and study co-author.
“Accident rates will plunge to near zero for SDCs, although other cars will crash into SDCs, but as the market share of SDCs on the highway grows, overall accident rates will decline steadily,” Juliussen says in a press release. “Traffic congestion and air pollution per car should also decline because SDCs can be programmed to be more efficient in their driving patterns.”
The new technology, however, faces potential risks and barriers, including software reliability, cyber security, and the establishment of government rules and regulations for SDCs, the authors note.
IHS notes that several automakers have announced plans to introduce autonomous cars by 2020.
North America is expected to account for the largest share – 29 percent – of self-driving cars in 2035, with 3.5 million vehicles, while China and western Europe will constitute the second- and third-largest markets, respectively, IHS says.
How will this impact supply chains? According to a recent article in the Commercial Carrier Journal, self-driving planes, trains, trucks will lead supply chain redesign.
