WASHINGTON — Car owners may not have to wait as long as they think before they can sip coffee and read a paper while their cars drive themselves.
“By the year 2020 you will see the first couple of vehicles being introduced with this technology in the vehicles itself,” says Thilo Koslowski, an analyst at the technology research firm Gartner.
Koslowski says autonomous vehicles will be available in five years. These vehicles will allow commuters to put in a destination and let the car drive itself there. But he says they won’t really be driverless cars.
“You will have to be prepared mentally and physically to take over in case something goes wrong,“ Koslowski says.
A few years after autonomous cars, we may see a more advanced stage of vehicle which will operate like a drone, Koslowski says. In seven to 10 years, he believes, driverless cars will hit the streets. That’s when everyone in the car can become a passenger, and the vehicle will do all the work.
“Technology is advancing very quickly,” says Myra Blanco, director for the center for automated vehicle systems at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Blanco believes driverless cars will come out in 10 to 20 years.
Experts believe the cars will not only bring convenience, but make the roads safer, with fewer accidents caused by human error.
Blanco said government policies and regulations for automated vehicles need to be in place before they can be sold to consumers, to minimize the risk of potential lawsuits.
Blanco says some states are not open to testing automated vehicles on the road, and that could be another holdup. She says Virginia has been a pioneering state regarding this technology, opening up 70 miles of public road for testing.
Education will play a big role in convincing consumers to give up control of their cars — to their cars — but Blanco says trust in automated vehicles is high.
Technology that will control driverless cars is already in use, from systems that help drivers stay in their lanes to those that help with parallel parking.
The robot cars are expected to be popular among the younger generation, but, Blanco says, older Americans who have lost the ability to drive may also find them beneficial.
