Motorway autonomy stuck in cost jam but inching forward

What price to hand over the driving to your car? With useful vehicular autonomy remaining tantalisingly out of reach, mainly due to cost issues, the topic was hotly debated among car makers and automotive suppliers at the recent CES tech show in Las Vegas. The desire to make the jump from level-two driver assistance to level three with its promise of hands-off, eyes-off motorway driving remains strong among car makers, who sense this is one option that customers will be prepared to pay big bucks for. Honda used CES to unveil a new prototype SUV for its planned 0 Series of EVs, which it promised would have the capability to drive long distances without human assistance in around three years’ time. “We are saying very clearly that we are aiming for global leadership in level-three autonomous driving,” said Mitsuru Kariya, head of Honda’s EV division. Meanwhile, BMW offered up further details about forthcoming models based on its mid-range Neue Klasse EV platform, which before the end of the decade will also offer level-three autonomy, developed in partnership with chip maker Qualcomm. Market watchers are convinced it will happen. The bank Goldman Sachs predicted that up to 10% of cars by 2030 will be available with level-three autonomous capabilities with some restrictions, with urban-centred robotaxis accounting for around 2.5%. “Level three if it's done right will create a revolution in transportation,” Amnon Shashua, CEO of driver-assistance tech market leader Mobilieye told Autocar at CES. But cost remains a big stumbling block. The industry is largely united in saying that at least one lidar sensor is needed to give a car maker the confidence that its car is aware of absolutely everything going on around it, yet just one of those from BMW supplier Innoviz will cost close to £500, compared with a handful of pounds for a high-resolution camera. The material costs alone for the hardware needed for level three have hit €2000 (£1678), according to an internal report by one major car maker seen by Jean-Marie Lapeyre, chief technology and innovation officer covering automotive at consultantcy Capgemini. “That doesn't seem enormous, but actually you have to double that to include engineering costs,” he said. Right now, only two car makers – BMW and Mercedes-Benz – offer level-three capability, and then only on flagship models sold in Germany and select US states. Mercedes’ Drive Pilot system, available on its S-Class, is a good illustration of the costs and complexity needed not just to meet regulations but also exceed them by enough to ensure unbroken sleep among Mercedes executives, who now assume responsibility. The system uses 35 sensors, including the lidar sensor, as well as a high-definition map and back-up steering and brakes in case something fails. The total cost to the buyer is €5950 (£4995). The fight now is to reduce the cost of the sensors while still ensuring a precision over and above that of the average driver, measured in the number of times that a car asks the human behind the wheel to take back control. “Even if you just want to match human-level statistics, we're talking about tens of thousands of hours between interventions,” said Shashua. “To give an idea of where the industry is today, let's say Tesla’s Full Self Driving system, it's about five to 10 hours between interventions.” Suppliers like Qualcomm and Mobilieye are convinced that is possible but warn that that consumers won’t get on board until they’re offered something genuinely transformative. “Level three is not usable right now,” said Shashua. “You need to pass a threshold of usability in order to create the revolution, meaning 130kph [81mph], changing lanes, no lead vehicles, all conditions, day and night.” Both BMW’s and Mercedes’ level-three systems are essentially traffic-jam pilots, ensuring plenty frustration for drivers forced to abandon video calls or movies to take over as the car breaks the boundaries of its operation domain. The firms are lifting some of the restrictions as they gain confidence in the technology. For example, Mercedes recently announced it will raise the highway speed of Drive Pilot early this year for customers in Germany from 60kph (37mph) to 95kph (59mph). Mobileye said its Chauffeur system, designed for Audi to use on a new model in 2027, will lift far more of those restrictions and offer a 130kph (81mph) speed limit. That level of usability would create demand strong enough that customers would be willing to pay for the extra tech, reckons Mobileye’s lidar partner, Innoviz. “I would argue that the $500 lidar is not the problem,” Innoviz CEO Omer Keilaf told Autocar. One slowing factor is that car makers want to ensure they’ve got a complete autonomous platform ready in the wings, with all the software, intelligence and computing power to easily upgrade it. “They want to see a path from level two to level three; they don't want a dead-end solution,” said Nico Stock, automotive product director at Qualcomm. That’s what Qualcomm and BMW have been working on together, but the level three side of that is still a way off. “The sensors have to get cheaper, but also the systems have to have so much redundancy that they have to be developed in a different way, because they have to be prepared to be react,” Frank Weber, head of development at BMW, told Autocar at CES. “The process is so different between level two and level two plus.” Weber predicted it would take “a half-vehicle generation” – so roughly three years – before level-three autonomy became available on mainstream cars based on the Neue Klasse platform. Qualcomm reckons its can already program a car to driver autonomously in highway situations, and the hard graft now needs to come from the car maker. “Level 3 is mainly an OEM vehicle problem," said Stock. It’s a problem they need to solve however, if they want to continue to keep up with China. There the inclusion of lidar is almost commonplace and sophisticated driver assistance is a huge selling point. “It’s become something to brag about. It used to be how much horsepower you’ve got; now it’s how many lidars you have,” Stock said. China has yet to authorise level-three autonomy, but it’s only a matter of time, the industry believes, as more companies are handed testing licences. European car makers are marching to a rhythm set by China as they try to shore up eroding market share lost to tech-first Chinese brands. “Essentially China is going to be driving this,” said Stock.

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Motorway autonomy stuck in cost jam but inching forward

Useable self-driving features remain a top development concern among car makers

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Motorway autonomy stuck in cost jam but inching forward

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