London Wants to Allow Autonomous Vehicles in Four Years

The United Kingdom is planning the autonomization of road traffic in quick steps: from 2019 fully self-driving cars are allowed to be tested on the roads of the country – and by 2021 will become part of the regular transport system.

The London government sees autonomous cars as part of the “next industrial revolution,” ntv reports. In this, the country wants to be in the front and plans, according to Finance Minister Philip Hammond for this week, the idea of concrete plans. In addition to providing the legal basis for the use of autonomous technology in road traffic, the UK should subsidize the necessary technologies.

In order to support the development of self-driving cars, the British government wants to promote several neighboring technology fields: 400 million pounds to go into the expansion of charging stations for electric cars, 160 million pounds in the expansion of the broadband mobile network with the 5G standard, 75 million pounds promote the development of Artificial Intelligence. However, these subsidies, which will be presented in the budget this week, will partly replace EU subsidies that will disappear after Brexit.

Autonomous vehicles are already on the streets of London: Volvo is testing its driverless XC90, Nissan had a similar program, and Google’s Waymo was also in talks with local authorities, writes t3n. So far, such tests in the United Kingdom but still human employees as security drivers on board to be able to intervene if necessary.

This should be over from 2019 and be eliminated from 2021 without the special conditions of an experiment. If it goes by the will of the British government, so it is only four years until self-driving cars, at least on the island, belonging to the regular traffic scene.

Tech Companies And Car Owners Looking For Solutions For Autonomous Cars

In order to implement the vision of the self-propelled car, Autobauer increasingly cooperates with tech companies. A newly established consortium of telecommunications, technology, and the auto manufacturer wants to drive the development of the necessary network infrastructure.

Take the hands of the steering wheel on the highway, drive through the roundabout with your eyes closed, or take a nap on the driver’s seat at the end of the day – autonomous cars are to make all this possible.

If it happens to some car manufacturers, then rather today than tomorrow. However, to make the dream of the self-propelled car come true, a mature infrastructure is essential for data exchange.

With a view to accelerating its expansion, a number of well-known companies from the telecommunications, engineering and automotive industries have now joined forces to form a new consortium.

The term “Automotive Edge Computing Consortium” cooperating companies Ericsson, Toyota, Intel, Nippon Telegraph, NTT Docomo and Japanese auto parts maker Denso to create the conditions for smart driving and real-time maps.

For Intel and Ericsson, it is not the first effort in the field. Both companies have been cooperating for some time with Autobauer BMW: Intel to develop new vehicles together with the miners and Ericsson to test the 5G technology on highways, The new merger will ensure the smooth communication between autonomous cars and the cloud.

According to the consortium, the consortium is committed to decentralized data processing. The network capacity is to be significantly increased by so-called edge computing.

Companies expect data traffic to increase by tens of thousands of today’s levels by 2025 between cloud and vehicle. This requires a new infrastructure for data centers and networks.

The focus of the consortium is also the use of mobile devices in the vehicle. To this end, application examples are to be developed, and corresponding companies are to be brought in for their implementation. The formation of the new initiative again illustrates how the development of autonomous cars is increasingly unifying industries that have hardly touched each other before.

In addition to Intel, the chip maker Nvidia, which is mainly known for its graphics cards, has been actively involved in the realization of intelligent cars since the beginning of the year. The company cooperates with Audi, VW, Daimler, Bosch, and ZF to provide processors for artificial intelligence.

The efforts of the “Automotive Edge Computing Consortium” are to show first results in the coming months. The consortium has not yet submitted a precise timetable for the planned network expansion.

Audi Wants to Study the Brains of Autonomous Passenger Cars

Audi is committed to making the future of self-propelled cars the least traumatic possible for people and has launched the “25th Hour” project to understand better what this type of vehicle does right or wrong. However, the answer will not come from conventional research, but from people’s brains.

In a simulator, created in partnership with the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering, the brand decided to apply augmented reality to an environment that mimics a four-seater with seats facing each other.

The glasses are integrated displays, and all the surroundings are images generated with the help of projectors. The idea is to replicate a trip in a fully autonomous, level 5 vehicle and identify how certain aspects, such as lighting, noise, and interaction with notifications and other internal functions, affect users positively or negatively.

Preliminary tests were done with 30 people; all considered “Millennials receptive to autonomous cars,” who underwent an electroencephalogram (EEG) to have their responses measured directly through the brain, in addition to electrodermal sensors to capture other physical reactions related to the experience.

People were given different stimuli, such as noises, social media updates, and the amount of light in the environment, as well as having some tasks that should be fulfilled during the process.

The conclusion of the Audi brand was that certain conditions might favor specific behaviors such as conversation, productivity or relax while walking around. The expectation of the brand is that the project will continue for some time.

Oil Industry Begins to Feel The Impact of Electric Vehicles

It looks like the electric vehicles market has grown big enough to upset big people: Oil companies are reviewing their predictions about the market and realizing – perhaps a little late, that electricity-powered car is a near-inevitable future.

A study conducted by Bloomberg New Energy Finance revealed that OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has increased its forecast for the sale of electric vehicles by 2040 – from 46 million to 266 million units.

Other major companies in the segment, such as Exxon Mobil and BP, also decided to revise the numbers that were lifted last year, with the two companies raising their forecasts from 60 million to 100 million vehicles.

In all, the expectation of the oil industry is that the inherent arrival of the electric will reduce the demand for oil by 8 million barrels by 2040, equivalent to the current production of Iran and Iraq combined.

This could lead to stagnation in the demand for oil in the coming decades and a significant impact on the amount of money that is moving through this industry – about $700 billion per year.

“The number of electric vehicles on the streets will have serious implications for carmakers, oil companies, energy service providers and others,” explains Colin McKerracher, director of advanced transport analysis at BNEF. “There is a significant disagreement between how fast the adoption should be and the visions are changing fast.”

While some consulting firms estimate that electric power will account for 90 percent of sales by 2050, BNEF believes that the exchange of fuel for electricity will only happen in 2040, with 530 million new electric vehicles – or one-third of the world’s fleet – circulating around.

Autonomous Cars Could Eventually Cut 25,000 Jobs Per Month

The automotive industry is growing. From limited assistance to piloting to full automation, car makers strive to limit human intervention. But this promising industry could cause significant job losses worldwide and in the United States in particular.

Independent vehicles have advantages, such as helping the elderly or disabled or avoiding road accidents caused by human error. On the other hand, like automation in general, there will be job losses, and those resulting from autonomous cars can be very important. This is what a new report on the subject, realized by Goldman Sachs, affirms.

According to the report, The Americans will find themselves with a job loss of 25,000 per month, or 300,000 jobs a year, because of semi-autonomous and self-employed cars. The primary victims of this automation will be truck drivers more than any other professional driver, according to the report. It should be noted that among the 4 million professional drivers in the United States in 2014, there were 3.1 million truckers.

If Goldman Sachs believes that the full impact of autonomous cars is several decades ahead of us, society recognizes that when it happens, such a number of jobs will be lost in the United States. However, the report states that regulation and slower adoption can delay these effects.

Goldman Sachs estimates that sales of semi-autonomous and autonomous cars should already account for 20% of the total sale of cars between 2025 and 2030. A percentage justified by the profound changes put in place by the manufacturers for more automation.

The official launch of Uber Freight recently and the CEO of Ford who will be replaced by an independent car expert reflect the policies of these manufacturers for the future. But the automation of cars is only a stage of global automation that threatens other professionals like secretaries, cashiers, bank teller, waiters, and realtors.

Other industries such as retail, telecommunications, printing, and publishing have already lost a lot of jobs over the last decade. On the other hand, the sectors of food services, education, computer design or home care seem the best survivors of this wave of automation, according to the report.

South Korea is Building an Artificial City for Autonomous Cars

In order to be at the forefront of the race for self-propelled vehicles, South Korea is building a huge test track: the K-City is as big as a small town, simulates the real traffic and is scheduled to go into operation in autumn.

Not only the USA and Germany but also South Korea is working on the self-propelled car. The South Korean government is now taking a further step to advance the technology in their own country faster.

In October, the K-City will be opened. It is a 360,000 square meter site near the city of Hwaseong, on a giant test track for autonomous vehicles, narrow streets, traffic lights, roundabouts, even more, traffic lights, parking lots, bus lanes and an expressway. K-City offers the same scenarios as a real city.

The artificial city is to be used by South Korean motorists such as Kia and Hyundai as well as by technology companies such as Samsung, SK Telecom or Naver. Besides, insurance companies and urban developers can collect data on the XXL area.

The Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport announced the project last year, which was originally planned for December 2019. Apparently, it is now getting brighter: the site could already be finished in the spring of 2018.

However, K-City is not the only place where South Korean companies test their technologies for self-propelled cars. For example, the government granted Samsung permission to drive its autonomous experimental vehicles on public roads.

With these releases and the construction of K-City, the South Koreans want to achieve their high-level goal of rolling a large number of autonomous cars from stage 3 on public roads from 2020 onwards.

The K-City will be the world’s largest testing ground for self-propelled cars on completion, but the technology is already being tested elsewhere. At the University of Michigan, for example, there is the Mcity, a fake city where Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Toyota and other companies are researching the future of the car.

And the federal government also invests in autonomous driving: the federal government contributes 80 million euros for test tracks like on the A9 in Bavaria.