Those systems help today's drivers. For the cars of tomorrow, Daimler works closely with Robert Bosch Gmbh and will be using a system from Silicon Valley intelligent computing company Nvidia Corp. The test cars can drive at Level 4 autonomy or even Level 5, which means the car doesn’t need a steering wheel or pedals to operate.
The company has been testing V-Class vans around the roads of Boeblingen, near Stuttgart, where Mercedes-Benz has a research center. The automated vans run through purposefully challenging situations such as morning traffic. The technology is already at Level 5, Daimler’s head of development, Ola Kaellenius, said in an interview, although a recent report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance put the target date for the company after 2020.
Before those systems are on the road, Kaellenius said Mercedes will offer Level 3 autonomy as an option in the cars it sells by 2021. This means that the car can handle most driving while prompting the driver to take over in certain situations that the computer can’t handle.
Fully self-driving cars will be on the road at the same time, he said, but would be used for ride sharing services, because they would be too expensive for retail customers to buy. “The logical business case there is a mobility service, a robo-taxi type of thing,” Kaellenius said. “You amortize the cost through the saving on the driver.”
No one would have imagined a decade ago that a vestige of bankrupt GM parts unit Delphi would be a player in the self-driving revolution. But Aptiv Plc, the former Delphi Automotive that split out its powertrain business, has emerged as a player to be watched, said Grayson Brulte, co-founder of Brulte & Co., a consulting firm that specializes in autonomous strategy.
Aptiv has invested heavily in self-driving technology, buying software maker Ottomatika along with stakes in Lidar makers Innoviz, Leddertech and Quanergy Systems. Its biggest deal was buying NuTonomy, which has been running tests of driverless cars in Boston and Singapore at city speeds. The company also ran a robo-taxi demo in Las Vegas during CES.
The company has been testing ride-hailing services in Singapore since 2016 and will have them operational in 2021, according to Navigant. Aptiv has been working with Audi AG and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG cars to develop its technology.
The same day in late November that GM showed off its self-driving Bolt in San Francisco, Zoox Inc. had its own car driving through the city’s winding streets and heavy traffic. Zoox has about 250 engineers working to develop it. Its self-driving Toyota Highlander SUVs run on the same busy streets that GM uses to test the Bolt. But Zoox’s car can also drive at highway speeds, said Bert Kaufman, head of corporate and regulatory affairs for Zoox.
The company plans to have its car ready for passengers in 2020, Kaufman said, and then will work on getting passengers in the car shortly after.
The challenge for Zoox is getting more funding to build its car. The company has raised more than $280 million but needs an additional cash to finish its car, Kaufman said. It can cost $1 billion for car companies to finish a new model. Established carmakers have their own vehicles, and Waymo has partnerships with manufacturers.