Ford has announced that their most ambitious project which is self-driving cars are coming to the roads of Europe soon. Ford, which is one of the oldest and the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the US and based out of Detroit, says that the company is working on plans to launch self-driving autonomous vehicles in the European market. The announcement was made on Tuesday.
Conditions
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It is to be noted here that the conditions under which these cars will have to function are going to be clearly different in Europe than it is in the US. Some examples could be road signs, layouts and maps of roads, traffic conditions, safety requirements, traffic rules, and traffic signs among others. Also, remember, Europeans drive on the opposite side of the road compared to those in North America.
Another thing to be noted here is that even within Europe, the situation may turn out to be different from country to country. Ford will have to seriously upgrade their cars to adapt to these new and challenging situations. Not to mention all the government policies and regulations the team will have to face and meet. But it is no different than any other car manufacturer.
On top of this though, under President Trump, America is going to be cutting regulations which is going to help out all companies, including that of Ford. So all these European regulations that will continue to exist will be offset by America becoming more business friendly.
Thomas Lukaszewicz, who is the manager of self-driving autonomous project at Ford automobiles in Europe, said in a statement to the press that the company believes it to be vital to test their autonomous vehicles in the European market.
Ambitions
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Ford has developed a total of 30 self-driving cars till date. However, the Ford team is working hard to triple that number in the year 2017, taking it to a total of 100 autonomous cars.
Like other companies who are working on autonomous technology, Ford has ambitious plans for their self-driving car project. They are working on their plan to launch an entire fleet of self-driving cars that will act as taxis for passengers. They are hoping to make this dream a reality by the year 2021. At least one major US city will see this fleet of self-driving taxis from Ford.
So, what is so different about Ford's autonomous technology that makes it interesting and innovative? For starters, none of the self-driving cars from Ford features a steering wheel. The team at Ford says that there is no need of a steering wheel if there is no one to drive the car manually. That is fantastic for anyone who lives or works around Ace Ventura!
That also makes the availability of gas and brake pedals redundant. So they have decided to do away with those too. This should not only help Ford team save some much needed space in the car to add more gadgets and tech, but also help reduce the cost of manufacturing, only marginally though.
Hopefully plenty of airbags are in these new autonomous cars.
Competition
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The race is on and several other autonomous car manufacturers have revealed their plans for rolling out self-driving cars in the next five to ten years. The competition is already stiff. Some companies have already deployed semi-autonomous technologies to their cars which have enabled their models to drive on their own under certain specific conditions, while there is a steering wheel, brake and gas pedals to take over control when the said conditions are not met.
Ford on the other hand wants its autonomous cars to be one hundred percent autonomous, which means they should be able to navigate from starting point to end point without the interference of human beings. Ford engineering team believes that these semi-autonomous technologies are a liability.
Their argument: what happens when the passenger trusts the system more than they should and fail to re-engage the system or take over the control of the system when the conditions are not satisfied? What happens then? Who’s to blame here?
But some people want to ask Ford, what happens if there is an emergency and your autonomous car is not moving fast enough for you? That flood, criminal with a gun, hot lava, tornado, and so on may get you.