Las Vegas - Carmakers and Silicon Valley geeks are amping up their efforts to define the car of the future - even though many of the players disagree about what that car should be.
The emerging autonomous vehicle sector is still in a turbulent stage akin to the old debate over “Betamax versus VHS” format. Standards are not yet defined, winners and losers are not sorted out and major players disagree sharply about the best way to bring the promise of safer, smarter cars to market.
Consider the contrasting visions of the automotive future put forward at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week by Ford boss Mark Fields and Daimler Chairman Dieter Zetsche.
Ford's approach, Fields says, is to focus initially on connecting cars and their drivers to the internet with apps as the building blocks, and work on sensors and software that will eventually enable the development of fully autonomous vehicles in the next decade.
Ford wants to develop affordable technology for a broad swath of consumers - the philosophy behind founder Henry Ford's Model T.
Daimler's Mercedes-Benz has a different idea from Ford - and worlds apart from Google, which has rattled the automotive establishment with its high-profile effort to develop a fully self-driving city car.
Zetsche presented a futuristic Mercedes prototype at CES that could drive itself down city boulevards while passengers used hand gestures to call up information about restaurants along the route or receive invitations to party from friends nearby.
Where Ford wants to make autonomous cars for “Everyman,” and Google envisions cars as pod-like appliances, Daimler presented robotic driving as part of a technology package that sets its premium cars apart from more plebeian rides.
At the same time, Zetsche said Daimler could extend the self-driving concept to tiny “green” cars such as its Smart EV or into car-sharing programs such as its Car2Go enterprise - potentially challenging Google in that sphere.
“I hope you will still recognise us as being the inventor of the car,” Zetsche said. “But we should be defined by our future, not by our past.”
SENSE OF URGENCY
The urgency among the companies looking to profit from connected vehicle technology, including the hardware and software required for automated driving, is increasing. Several carmakers, including Mercedes, GM and Audi, have said they want to have vehicles capable of significant levels of hands-free driving on the road between 2016 and 2020. That means contracts to supply hardware and software need to be signed now.
The head of Google's autonomous vehicle project, Chris Urmson, is scheduled to speak next week at an industry conference in Detroit to send the message that Google wants to forge partnerships with traditional automakers and suppliers to get its technology on the road.
Research firm IHS Automotive has estimated that autonomous car technology will add more than $31 billion (R360 billion) a year in revenue for Google by 2040.
What’s not clear, however, is how automakers and traditional technology suppliers as Continental, Delphi or Bosch will welcome Google and other computer companies muscling in between them and their customers.
Volkswagen, for example, announced at CES this week that it has partnered with Google rival TomTom to provide mapping data for its vehicles. Accurate maps are critical for autonomous driving, and they also provide richer information to drivers based on their location.
Reuters