If you believe prognostications from automakers, greater levels of autonomous technology will begin flooding the market within a few years.
However, surveys show dealers and buyers already are overwhelmed with in-car technology, which includes infotainment features as well as safety tech that edges toward autonomy, such as lane-keep assist and adaptive cruise control.
So how will drivers learn about the capabilities of even more advanced autonomous systems?
“It seems to me this eventually will be integrated into driver education the same way other parts of learning to drive are,” Gil Pratt, CEO-Toyota Research Institute, tells media in a roundtable interview.
“We do agree the issue of driving and the driver having the correct amount of trust in the system is absolutely crucial (so they) learn not to over-trust (and) learn not to under-trust.”
Pratt draws a correlation to when antilock brakes first appeared in the market, noting it took a while for people to learn not to pump the brakes and that the car will do it for them.
But, in reference to the dangers of over-trusting technology, Pratt notes some still assume ABS means a car will never skid.
“Again, I think driver education is key and it’s important for it to filter down into the training and testing, not just what the dealer says when you buy your car.
“And that’s for the government to do,” he continues. “I think that has to be part of the synergy that happens between the OEMs and the government.”
Education is seen as key to drivers learning the difference between various capabilities and levels of autonomous technology. For instance, guardian-mode technology can intervene on a human driver while a true autonomous mode, sometimes also referred to as chauffer mode, is fully self-driving and needs no human assistance.
A 2015 study by the University of Iowa found 65% of drivers not only had not used adaptive cruise control, which uses radar and cameras to maintain a set distance from the car ahead, they didn’t know what it was. Many dealership personnel surveyed also were said to be unaware of certain advanced safety systems.
Pratt says for many, seeing will be believing, and lead to higher usage of autonomous technology, although he doesn’t advise participation in risky behavior.
“When you’ve experienced (automatic-emergency braking) saving you from a crash, it’s quite an event…I feel gratitude. ‘I’m really glad my car saved me from this.’ So I think as we expand the number of guardian-like (systems), people will begin to feel that, and they will actually care (about the systems their car is equipped with to protect them).”
Meanwhile, Pratt cautions against automakers using the term “full autonomy,” noting it has no official definition and can give consumers the wrong impression.
“It sounds impressive, but can mean anything,” he says. “The train that goes between the airport and the rental car building at (San Francisco airport) is fully autonomous. It rides on a set of steel rails. I don’t think anybody thinks that is future technology, obviously because it works now.”
Official definitions of autonomy are defined by organizations such as SAE. When most speak of “full autonomy” Pratt says typically they are referring to something in the SAE Level 4 area, not Level 5.
While a Level 5 autonomous car has no restrictions on where, when or in what weather conditions it operates, the Level 4 autonomous car does.
The San Francisco airport train could be considered Level 4 as “it’s restricted in geography to run on this set of rails in a certain place. It’s a small step from a set of rails to a dedicated (vehicle) lane,” Pratt says.
“And then we keep on notching it down more and more, and you can make the traffic as busy as you’d like, the weather as poor as you’d like and keep setting these different criteria (for Level 4 operation),” he continues. “So I think the confusion you’re sensing is because we are using the same phrase or the same words to mean vastly different things.”
Pratt has said Level 5 autonomous cars are “not even close” and nowhere near the 2020 introduction date many automakers are giving when they speak of self-driving systems.
Holding back Level 5 is the creation of machine perception that is as good as human perception.
“We know a mother and child on a sidewalk are unlikely to cross the street in a dangerous way, whereas we know that two high school boys with skateboards that look like they’re bored (may). Our brains have really good models of human behavior.”
At the recent CES in Las Vegas, Pratt touted Toyota’s Concept-i car which has what is considered Level 2 autonomous technology, in that it can take over for a human driver only in an emergency.
Achieving the safety and reliability of systems necessary for Level 2 is a big enough hill for automakers to climb, Pratt says, given people are “less forgiving when a machine causes an injury or death than when a human being does.”
