The world is extensively connected today and wherever you are on the planet, you can almost easily connect to someone else in another location. In recent years, there’s also been another type of connectivity taking place in cars where development is underway for cars to be able to ‘talk’ to each other.
This is not only useful for improving driving safety today but also tomorrow when autonomous vehicles are moving around. By communicating their position, other vehicles can avoid them if they are not visible or have been immobilised due to an accident.
Now Goodyear is also working on connected tyres which can communicate with the vehicle. With sensors embedded in the tyres, the tyre and road condition can be relayed to the vehicle’s ‘brain’. initial studies have shown that such connected tyres can reduce stopping distance lost between a new and worn tyre by 30%.
With the evolution to electric and autonomous vehicles, connected tyres and the impact they can have on stopping distance, communication with the vehicle will only increase in importance. The connected and intelligent tyre system continuously measures and records tyre-derived information, which is paired with other vehicle data and connected to Goodyear’s cloud-based proprietary algorithms.
Goodyear has been conducting road tests and field trials and its test fleet has covered 4.8 million kilometres, collecting valuable data to refine and improve the concept. The intelligent tyres can measure tyre wear, load, inflation and temperature, along with road surface conditions, in real time, allowing the vehicle to adjust and respond to these measurements and optimise vehicle performance.
“Consider someone driving on a slick, curvy road in wet conditions. The driver adjusts his movements by slowing down, tapping the brakes or avoiding sudden steering,” said Chris Helsel, Goodyear’s Chief Technology Officer. “But what happens when nobody is behind the wheel? The tyre is the only part of the vehicle that touches the ground and it can communicate vital information to the vehicle, enhancing safety and performance.”
There’s no time-frame for the introduction of connected tyres but Goodyear is continuously testing them extensively with automakers, start-ups and other groups.
In the 1950s, carmakers envisioned sleek cars with advanced powertrains and autonomous operation on the roads of the 21st century while futurists and science fiction writers imagined flying cars. Well, we have the sleek designs with advanced powertrains due to make changes in this decade as electric motors take over from the internal combustion engine. But flying cars have yet to be available in showrooms although there have been developments in recent years with prototypes taking to the air.
UK’s Auto Trader takes a look at what vehicles might look like 30 years from now with concept designs based on the expertise of futurologist Tom Cheesewright, market trends, the rate of technological development and research into consumer demand.
“Tomorrow’s car takes you from A to B with minimum fuss and in maximum style. Future technologies will give designers free reign to create more space and comfort, so that we can get on with our lives while an AI assistant takes care of the driving. While our cars won’t be flying any time soon, we can all benefit from cleaner, quieter, safer roads. In just twenty years, the age of the combustion engine will be well and truly over,” predicts Cheesewright.
Past, present and future of the motorcar and motoring
Digital paint for different colours
Auto Trader’s 2050 concept car is a fully electric, colour-changing vehicle with space for passengers to make the most of the time they spend in the autonomous vehicle – by relaxing, doing yoga and even sleeping during the commute. Featuring ‘digital paint’, the car allows passengers to change the colour and style of the car from the tap of an app, depending on their mood, with advances in technology meaning this feature could be widely available as early as the year 2040.
Designed to be a home away from home, passengers can relax and unwind on the built-in mattress in the centre of the spacious cabin – a feature which 24% of motorists said they’d use for catching up on much-needed sleep and a cheeky 13% of men would use for some intimate time with a partner.
Reading or watching TV on the move
Drivers also said they’d like to reclaim their commute time by delving into a good book from the built-in library (22%) or watching their favourite Netflix shows and movies from the large in-built TV screen (19%).
Other popular recreational uses for the spacious design include beating friends and family at board games (16%), getting hair and make-up done on the way to an event (15% of women would do this), and 4% would even practice yoga whilst in transit.
AI assistant
Catering to the 10% of drivers who want cars to be fully voice-operated in future, the car welcomes passengers with a friendly AI (Artificial Intelligence) assistant that helps them set their preferred driving speed and style, whether out for a leisurely Sunday drive or rushing home for dinner. Given that the car is likely to be operating autonomously, rushing will not be done recklessly so an accident is unlikely to occur.
The 2050 car is fitted with windows that extend right over the roof in one large bubble, offering more head room to allow passengers to freely move around during transit. It also features 360-degree panoramic views for those wanting to sit back, relax and enjoy an autonomous ride, plus black-out functionality on the windows, which can be activated with a quick tap.
All images and Timeline provided by Auto Trader UK.
It’s not so long ago that the safety provisions in cars – even those at the top end of the market – did little except provide protection when an accident had happened. Passive safety features, such as seatbelts, airbags and a strong body construction were the key elements. The thinking then was to provide as much protection as possible to minimise the injurious effects of the accident.
When it came to avoiding an accident, the active safety features like ABS and vehicle stability systems helped the driver to retain a degree of control. Instead of ending up in a drain or against a tree, such systems corrected the movements of the car to try to stay on course.
Today, cars have systems that are able to recognise the risk of an accident, alert the driver to the hazard and, if necessary, intervene automatically to prevent a collision, or reduce the consequence it there is an impact. Such systems often begin at the upper end of the market, so it’s not surprising that Lexus has been a pioneer in the field. Its investment in the research, development and deployment of sophisticated new technologies is central to the brand’s goal of securing a future where there are no road accidents.
When the original LS 400 was launched 30 years ago, it was the first car in the world to feature an SRS (Supplementary Restraint System) airbag integrated into the steering wheel – the precursor of multiple airbag systems designed to give effective protection to everyone inside the car. This led to world’s first dual-chamber passenger airbag, fitted to the second generation IS 200 in 2005. Its unique structure greatly improved protection for the neck and shoulders.
Today, Lexus models can feature as many 10 different airbags around the cabin, including knee, side and curtain shield systems and front airbags that activate in line with the severity of the impact.
The behind-the-scenes work at Lexus to improve and devise new safety systems doesn’t just focus on cars and how they are driven. It goes further to analyse and understand the human body and how people react physically in the moments before an impact.
The key to this research is THUMS – Total Human Model for Safety – a computerised crash test system that replicates the not just the size and shape of the human body, but also the position, density and vulnerability of its internal muscles, bones and organs. It’s adaptable for different ages, too, with virtual modelling of infants, older people and even pregnant women. THUMS’s digital mapping can track the properties of around 20 million points on and inside the human body.
THUMS can obtain extremely detailed information about the human body during an accident using advanced digital mapping.
In 2015, Lexus bundled its principal new safety features in a new package called Lexus Safety System +, revealed for the first time on the fourth generation RX SUV. This was the start of a worldwide roll-out of the safety system with its wide-ranging availability demonstrating Lexus’ belief that, to be effective in reducing accidents and injuries, new safety technologies need to be provided on as many vehicles as possible. Democratising cutting-edge safety technology means these features cannot be restricted to the high-grade models only but are offered on entry and core vehicles.
A Lexus vehicle with a variety of sensors carrying out tests for autonomous operation.
Over the past 4 years, Lexus has improved the scope and the functionality of its safety these systems, enhancing their capabilities. In 2017, the launch of the all-new LS 500h flagship sedan marked a significant leap forward in safety with the debut of Lexus Safety System + A. This cutting-edge portfolio included a series of world-first features, with a level of driver assistance that propelled our progress towards future automated driving systems. Although not formally classified, Lexus Safety System + A meets the criteria for SAE Level 2+ automation – the industry standard for automated driving capability.
Future automated driving systems will have an important impact on road safety, having the potential to reduce the number of traffic injuries and fatalities, while also easing congestion (which helps the environment) and enabling older and disabled people to enjoy mobility.
The age of autonomous cars – vehicles that can operate without human control – is coming. It’s not charging at us but with the amount of investment and R&D going into such technology, there will come a time when the companies are ready to sell autonomous vehicles. The introduction won’t be global, just as electric vehicles are not sold everywhere even though they have reached commercialisation.
While autonomous technologies have improved substantially, they still ultimately view the drivers around them as obstacles made up of ones and zeros, rather than human beings with specific intentions, motivations, and personalities. For all their fancy sensors and intricate data-crunching abilities, even the most cutting-edge cars lack something that (almost) every teenager with a ‘P’ licence has: social awareness.
A team led by researchers at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been exploring whether self-driving cars can be programmed to classify the social personalities of other drivers. This could help them better predict what different cars will do — and, therefore, be able to drive more safely among them.
In a new paper, the scientists integrated tools from social psychology to classify driving behaviour with respect to how selfish or selfless a particular driver is. Specifically, they used something called social value orientation (SVO), which represents the degree to which someone is selfish (‘egoistic’) versus altruistic or cooperative (‘prosocial’). The system then estimates drivers’ SVOs to create real-time driving trajectories for self-driving cars.
Testing their algorithm on the tasks of merging lanes and making unprotected turns to the left (on US roads where vehicles travel on the right), the team showed that they could better predict the behaviour of other cars by a factor of 25%. For example, in the left-turn simulations, their car knew to wait when the approaching car had a more egoistic driver, and to then make the turn when the other car was more ‘prosocial’.
While not yet robust enough to be implemented on real roads, the system could have some intriguing use cases, and not just for the cars that drive themselves. Say you’re a human driving along and a car suddenly enters your blind spot — the system could give you a warning in the rear-view mirror that the car has an aggressive driver, allowing you to adjust accordingly. It could also allow self-driving cars to actually learn to exhibit more human-like behaviour that will be easier for human drivers to understand.
Mercedes-Benz researchers have taken prototype autonomous vehicles through various cities around the world to collect data on driving conditions and drivers so as to improve the ‘intelligence’ of the cars.
“Working with and around humans means figuring out their intentions to better understand their behaviour,” said graduate student Wilko Schwarting, who was lead author on the new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “People’s tendencies to be collaborative or competitive often spills over into how they behave as drivers. In this paper, we sought to understand if this was something we could actually quantify.”
Schwarting’s co-authors included MIT professors Sertac Karaman and Daniela Rus, as well as research scientist Alyssa Pierson and former CSAIL postdoc Javier Alonso-Mora.
A central issue with today’s self-driving cars is that they’re programmed to assume that all humans act the same way. This means that, among other things, they’re quite conservative in their decision-making at 4-way stops and other intersections. While this caution reduces the chance of fatal accidents, it also creates bottlenecks that can be frustrating for other drivers, not to mention hard for them to understand. This may be why the majority of traffic incidents have involved getting rear-ended by impatient drivers.
“Creating more human-like behaviour in autonomous vehicles (AVs) is fundamental for the safety of passengers and surrounding vehicles, since behaving in a predictable manner enables humans to understand and appropriately respond to the AV’s actions,” said Schwarting.
To try to expand the car’s social awareness, the CSAIL team combined methods from social psychology with game theory, a theoretical framework for conceiving social situations among competing players. The team modeled road scenarios where each driver tried to maximize their own utility and analyzed their ‘best responses’ given the decisions of all other agents.
Based on that small snippet of motion from other cars, the team’s algorithm could then predict the surrounding cars’ behaviour as cooperative, altruistic, or egoistic — grouping the first two as ‘prosocial’. People’s scores for these qualities rest on a continuum with respect to how much a person demonstrates care for themselves versus care for others.
In the merging and left-turn scenarios, the two outcome options were to either let somebody merge into your lane (‘prosocial’) or not (‘egoistic’). The team’s results showed that, not surprisingly, merging cars are deemed more competitive than non-merging cars.
The system was trained to try to better understand when it’s appropriate to exhibit different behaviours. For example, even the most deferential of human drivers knows that certain types of actions — like making a lane-change in heavy traffic — require a moment of being more assertive and decisive.
“By modeling driving personalities and incorporating the models mathematically using the SVO in the decision-making module of a robot car, this work opens the door to safer and more seamless road-sharing between human-driven and robot-driven cars,” said Rus.
In the context of Malaysian traffic conditions, such advanced intelligent technology may well be valuable in addressing the unpredictability of the many motorcyclists which ride between cars. Of course, it will require extremely quick processing for the autonomous car to respond and react in time to avoid a collision.
The research was supported by the Toyota Research Institute for the MIT team. The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research provided support for the specific participation of Mora.
Electric vehicles (EVs) and autonomous self-driving cars are going to be part of our lives in future. In Malaysia, perhaps it will take a while for them to become significant numbers although Edaran Tan Chong Motor is taking the initiative to start selling EVs such as the Nissan LEAF now. Autonomous cars will take a lot longer as our conditions present challenges, particularly in the area of safety.
In the more developed countries, the infrastructure is already well developed to enable autonomous cars to function safely. They need to have good roads and clear signage and not have motorcyclists weaving in and out of traffic. We have a long way to go in these matters…
California is one such place and the west coast state of America has traditionally been an ‘early adopter’ for the auto industry. For this reason, Hyundai Motor, in collaboration with Pony.ai and Via, will start running a fleet of self-driving Hyundai KONA all-electric SUVs around the community of Irvine.
Free shared, on-demand service
Known as BotRide, the free shared, on-demand, autonomous vehicle service will operate on public roads from November 4 this year. Using the BotRide app (iOS and Android), the public can hail an autonomous KONA directly from their smartphone. Via’s advanced algorithms enable multiple passengers to share the same vehicle. The app directs passengers to nearby stops to await pick-up and drop-off, allowing for quick and efficient shared trips without lengthy detours, or inconvenient fixed routes and schedules.
“The pilot service introduces BotRide to several hundred Irvine residents, including college students. The goal is to study consumer behaviour in an autonomous ride-sharing environment,” said Christopher Chang, Head of Business Development, Strategy and Technology division, Hyundai Motor Company. “We are going to learn about ecosystems, where the vehicles travel and optimize the customer experience. BotRide, is another example of Hyundai’s ongoing efforts to actively build expertise in mobility technology as well as the company’s commitment to providing more user-friendly mobility services to customers.”
Navigating complex road scenarios
Integrated Hyundai and Pony.ai technologies enable the BotRide vehicles to navigate complex road scenarios safely. These vehicles are equipped with Pony.ai’s latest sensor hardware and proprietary software to identify the precise position of surrounding vehicles, handle pedestrian traffic in urban areas, accurately monitor its surroundings, predict the behaviour of other road-users, and precisely plan actions accordingly. In addition to self-driving capabilities, BotRide is validating its user experience in preparation for a fully driverless future.
BotRide launches with multiple popular destinations where a passenger may hail a ride using the BotRide app. The service area covers several residential, commercial, and institutional points of interest. BotRide’s technology prioritizes passenger-to-system interactions such as automated onboard passenger verification, giving riders the chance to familiarize themselves with technologies expected to become commonplace in an autonomous mobility future.
“Through BotRide, Hyundai is leveraging cutting-edge autonomous vehicle and mobility technologies to introduce a new, safe, and convenient form of transportation to the public,” said Daniel Han, Manager, Advanced Product Strategy, Hyundai Motor America. “The BotRide pilot service represents an important step in the deployment and eventual commercialization of a growing new mobility business. In addition to the technology partners powering BotRide, the broader city and community ecosystem have also played an important role in making BotRide possible.”
RM50 million will be allocated for the repair and maintenance of roads leading to Port Klang so as to make it a regional maritime centre and a cargo logistic hub. The Transport Ministry is also conducting a feasibility study for a Klang Logistic Corridor which will be a new logistic highway to connect Northport, Westport and existing highways. Together with another proposal for a Serendah-Port Klang rail bypass, the two projects are expected to cost RM8.3 billion.RM25 million will be allocated to set up contestable matching grant fund to support more pilot projects on digital applications such as autonomous vehicles, drone delivery, and blockchain technology.Average toll charges will be reduced by 18% on all PLUS highways, saving users up to RM1.13 billion in 2020, and a total of RM43 billion until 2038 when the concession expires. PLUS-managed highways include the North-South Expressway (NSE), New Klang Valley Expressway (NKVE), Seremban-Port Dickson Expressway (SPDH), North-South Expressway Central Link (ELITE), Malaysia-Singapore Second Link Highway (Linkedua), the Butterworth-Kulim Expressway (BKE), East-Coast Expressway 2 (LPT2), and the Penang Bridge.Additionally, 4 Klang Valley highways acquired by the government will see a 30% drop in toll fares during non-peak hours (but likely to be higher during peak hours). The highways are Shah Alam Highway (KESAS), Damansara-Puchong Expressway (LDP), Sprint Expressway (SPRINT), and SMART Tunnel (SMART). These four highways will not have toll charges from midnight until dawn.The toll rate for the Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge or Second Penang bridge will be reduced to RM7 from RM8.50 (for Class 1 vehicles) from January 1, 2020. This will make the rate similar to the first Penang Bridge. Down south, RM85 million will be allocated to address the congestion problem at the Johor Bahru Causeway and Second Link.The government is firm on moving to B20 biodiesel for the transportation sector at the end of 2020. This will have a positive impact on the oil palm industry as the expected volume is 500,000 tonnes a year.The petrol subsidy programme (PSP) was announced recently and will be implemented from January 2020. Eligible recipients are those registered for BSH and they will get RM30 per month for car owners and RM12 per month for motorcycle owners. The Finance Minister also mentioned a second group which will get a ‘Kad95’ that entitled them to a subsidy on RON95 petrol at 30 sen less per litre (maximum 100 litres/month for cars, 40 litres/month for motorcycles). Details of ‘Kad95’ and criteria for qualification are not known. The fuel subsidy will only be made available when the market price (based on the APM) for RON95 petrol rises above RM2.08/litre.Up to RM1 billion will be spent to improve roads around the country; of this, RM326 million will be used in Sabah and RM224 million for Sarawak. The Pan Borneo Highway project is still continuing but the project costs RM1.2 billion less due to cost-savings.The government will spend RM450 million on the purchase of 500 electric buses for public transport use in cities. There are already 10 electric buses, each costing RM2 million, which have been going around Putrajaya for the past few years.RM20 million will be allocated for the development of eSports, a growing international activity. UMW Toyota Motor was the first local car company to become involved in eSports with its GR Velocity eSports Championship in 2018 and a second season in 2019.
They’re arch-rivals in the global marketplace but when it comes to collaborating, it’s a different matter. Given how expensive R&D costs are, carmakers often decide to work with selected partners or even form consortiums so that the costs can be shared. Each one may bring certain areas of expertise to the collaboration as well, reducing duplication and cost.
Daimler AG and BMW Group have recently announced their cooperation on automated driving as a long-term strategic move. This will focus on joint development of next-generation technologies for driver assistance systems, automated driving on highways and automated parking (all to SAE Level 4).
In addition, further talks are planned to extend the cooperation to higher levels of automation in urban areas and city centres. This underscores the long-term and lasting nature of the undertaking, which will extend to encompass a scalable platform for automated driving. The non-exclusive cooperation is also open to other carmakers and technology partners, with results being made available to under license if they want to use the technologies.
Swift market launch
A key aim of the cooperation is the swift market launch of the technology, expected to feature in passenger car systems for private customers from 2024. The two companies will each implement the technologies in their respective products independently.
The cooperation will see more than 1,200 specialists working together, often in mixed teams based at locations of both companies. Efforts will focus on developing a scalable architecture for driver assistance systems, including sensors, as well as a joint data centre for data storage, administration and processing, and the development of functions and software.
Along with Aptiv, Audi, Baidu, Continental, Fiat Chrysler, HERE, Infineon, Intel and Volkswagen, the BMW Group and Daimler have published a white paper entitled ‘Safety First for Automated Driving’. As well as covering all relevant safety methods for Level 3/4 SAE automated driving, the paper introduces a traceability system, which extends from the primary goal – being safer than the average driver – right down to the individual safety objectives of the various components.
Current development by both companies
Daimler AG has been working on series development projects not only for specific Level 3 vehicles but also for Levels 4 and 5. Long a leader in active safety systems, it programmed its systems largely in-house right from the very beginning.This year will see the launch in San Jose, California, of its first pilot programme, with Bosch, on self-driving vehicles (Levels 4/5) in urban environments.
This will be the next milestone within the existing cooperation between both partners and the cooperation will continue as planned. Early in the next decade, Daimler will bring to the market not only highly automated (Level 3) vehicles but also fully automated (Level 4/5) vehicles. It is the only carmaker in the world to be so well-positioned to apply autonomous driving in every relevant context, from passenger cars and vans to buses and trucks, and is therefore relying on scalable solutions to deliver automated driving.
The BMW Group has developed technology with unique scalability from Level 2 – 4 that both enables a high level of flexibility and ensures it will be viable in the future. Around the world, more than 70 test vehicles are testing the latest technology, collecting data in order to improve machine learning with artificial intelligence through simulations. The generation of technologies that is currently under development will go into production as Level 3 automation in 2021 in the BMW iNEXT where it will also be Level 4-enabled for pilot projects.
Volvo is one of the pioneers of autonomous cars, this news isn’t new. What is however, is the fact that the Swedish automaker will be developing its fleet of self driving vehicles with the help of regular civilians. Select Swedish families will be responsible for testing these cars on the public roads of Gothenburg and feedback their impressions to Volvo Cars engineers.
The first two families of this pilot programme are the Hains and Simonovskis. They will be tasked with driving their respective XC90 SUV on daily commutes to help the automaker iron out some of the creases with its systems. Called the Drive Me project, data collected here will allow engineers to monitor and study the acquired data from these vehicles.
Drive Me will involve real customers who will be responsible for testing various stages of Volvo’s autonomous system from driver-assisted to fully autonomous. During the initial stages, drivers will need to keep their hands on the steering wheel while the vehicles are in motion. Later on, they will be exposed to more advanced autonomous functions after attending special training sessions.
“Drive Me is an important research project for Volvo Cars,” said Henrik Green, Senior Vice President for the company’s R&D department. “We expect to learn a lot from engaging these families and will use their experiences to shape the development of our autonomous driving technology, so that by 2021 we can offer our customers a fully autonomous car.”
These XC90 vehicles have been fitted with Volvo’s latest driver-assistance technology, as well as an array of cameras and sensors. The initial stages of the programme will take place in a controlled environment under the supervision of a Volvo Cars safety expert. Once the Hains and Simonovskis get the hang of things, they will be allowed to use these vehicles as their daily drivers.
Volvo plans on launching its first fully autonomous car for the general public by 2021. And the data acquired through Drive Me, will play a vital role for the automaker as it prepares its technology for mass production.
Following the recent UK budget announcement by The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond regarding driverless cars, Cruden announced a cost effective way forward. This is a big deal considering that the UK government is set to make bold reforms that will see developers test vehicles on UK roads nationwide without a human operator by 2021.
Cruden is a well-known designer, manufacturer and integrator of open architecture driving simulators for the automotive, Motorsport, marine and motorcycle industries. And it believes that the most cost effective and risk-free way for companies to test their autonomous systems, is by using a driving simulator.
Doing so, will keep public motorists and pedestrian out of harm’s way. Currently, in states like California in the USA, autonomous cars are tested and driven on public roads. Should the unthinkable happen, and an autonomous car decides to go rogue, it could potentially cause a great deal of harm to those in the vicinity.
This is why Cruden believes that testing driverless technology in a repeatable and highly effective environment, without risking human injury, can only be accomplished with the use of a driving simulator. In fact, Cruden’s own machines can be used to test advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicle systems.
“We believe that extensive testing of the interaction between the driver and the car, with many different types of people, is required to get the necessary acceptance of the car’s decisions in handover moments and emergency scenarios, ” said, Jelle van Doornik, development engineer at Cruden.
“Yet this is dangerous, expensive and time consuming to do with real people in real cars with real traffic. The only way to achieve this while processing large numbers of different drivers through a test programme is to use an advanced driving simulator,” he added.
The company is adamant that testing driverless cars on UK roads isn’t possible because of the inconvenience and risks that they would pose to motorists and pedestrians. That said, automakers like Volvo, Tesla and Google have made massive strides in this area with only minor setbacks. But we shall have to wait and see if automakers decide to heed their warning or ignore it completely.
Ford has teamed up with Domino’s, the world renowned pizza maker, to develop autonomous delivery vehicles for the latter’s customers. This effort will enable the Blue Oval to study the role that future delivery pizza delivery vehicles might play in our lives.
Researchers from both companies will also investigate customer reactions to interacting with a self-driving vehicle as part of their delivery experience. They consider this of paramount importance because it will help them better understand customers’ perspectives regarding the future of food delivery with self-driving vehicles.
“As delivery experts, we’ve been watching the development of self-driving vehicles with great interest as we believe transportation is undergoing fundamental, dramatic change,” said Patrick Doyle, Domino’s president and CEO.
“We pride ourselves on being technology leaders and are excited to help lead research into how self-driving vehicles may play a role in the future of pizza delivery. This is the first step in an ongoing process of testing that we plan to undertake with Ford,” he later added.
Like many other mainstream automakers, Ford is still developing its self-driving vehicle business. Collaboration with other companies, will enable it to conduct valuable research that will be crucial to ensuring that the technology is applied in ways that benefit consumers.
The Blue Oval plans on rolling out production ready self-driving vehicles by 2021, and with that it hopes to meet the needs of companies and customers alike. But for Domino’s, currently a Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle will be used to deliver pizzas to randomly-selected Domino’s customers in Ann Arbor, USA.
It wil be manually-driven by a Ford safety engineer and staffed with researchers. Customers who agree to participate will be able to track the delivery vehicle through GPS using an upgraded version of Domino’s Tracker®.
Text messages will be sent to respective customers once the delivery vehicle approaches their location. And will also guide them to retrieve their pizza using a unique code to unlock the Domino’s Heatwave Compartment™ inside the vehicle.
The Ford Fusion used here was retrofitted with the required hardware by Roush Enterprises which include the pizza container and Domino’s Heatwave Compartment. This vehicle was completed in 2015 and was put through preliminary testing in a simulated urban environment before it was let loose here.
It will be awhile before we start seeing such systems become common place at our local Domino’s outlet, but its comforting to know that Ford already has plans to ensure we get our pizzas on time.
