Self-driving cars are a reality, with a host of companies developing autonomous systems.
Google and the car industy, together with a couple of
analysts' reports, put autonomous driving at centre stage in all the Detroit
motor show interviews this week. The media seemed in accusatory mood, with most
hacks demanding self-driving cars, now!
In fact, the first driverless vehicle - the Induct
Technology Navia - is now on sale, and test vehicles from Google,
Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and many others have driven themselves on public roads
(under strict supervision).
BMW has displayed a car that can "drift" through
corners without a driver, while Volvo has announced plans for the world’s first
large-scale test of driverless cars and governments are framing permit
legislation to allow the further research of such vehicles on the highways, so
it's clear that most of the hardware to make a self-driving car is in place,
expensive and is indeed on its way into your car some time in the next decade.
That's not to say your car will be driving itself home any
time soon, as the paucity of ultra-detailed maps and enabling legislation, plus
the spectre of ambulance chasing lawyers, will keep a lid on the technology's
introduction for the moment.
There's also a questioning undercurrent building, pointing
out the drawbacks of the technology and its less reported consequences, data
security being a key one. These issues have been widely talked about within the
industry and reported in the Telegraph, with figures such as Jan Ivarsson, head
of strategy at Volvo's Safety Centre, who pointed out some of the drawbacks and
security requirements of a self-driving car five years ago.
It fell to Dieter
Zetsche, the chief executive of Mercedes-Benz, to summarise the debate during
the Detroit show.
"The car that will take you home after you have had too
much to drink is a long way off," he said. "But is that what we
really want?"
He outlined a number of the data privacy issues, including
the threat from hackers taking control of vehicles, and also the security of
data records showing where you've been, when and at what speed. This data could
potentially be available to authorities, insurance companies, courts, debt
collectors, vengeful spouses and relatives, accident investigators and the
like.
"As long as we are not forced otherwise, we prefer the
driver to decide what happens to that data," Zetsche said. "But it
seems possible that insurance companies might offer a bonus based on driver
behaviour if you allow them access to that data. We will try to defend the
decision to leave it [the data] with the driver. Will we be successful? We'll
see."
How sure are we that the cars cant be hacked?
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