Toronto, Ontario — Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have been drawing a lot of attention in the past few months, rarely in a positive light. Thankfully, business intelligence consultancy firm, IDTechEx suggests that we are getting closer to large scale AV deployments—just not as consumer level vehicles.
For instance, Waymo and Cruise have successfully deployed robotaxi services in San Francisco, albeit in incredibly restricted circumstances. Specifically, Cruise can only use 30 vehicles of its 150-strong vehicle fleet, at speeds below 48 kilometres per hour, and only between 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in a small section of the city.
While AVs may not be ready for the personal automotive world, IDTechEx suggests that the incremental technological gains are more subtle. Specifically, they point towards autonomous trucks and next-gen sensors like ADAS.
Some examples include TuSimple completing an 80-mile journey across Arizona without human intervention and Gatik operating an AV delivery fleet for Loblaws.
Similarly, the sensor suites that may not be ready to independently navigate a vehicle on its own are now seeing use to supplement ADAS, with examples like the BMW iX and Feifan R7 employing 4D imaging radars first deployed on AVs.
Additionally, LiDAR is now seeing limited deployment on premium vehicles by OEMs, with IDTechEx saying that this is largely a cost restriction that is expected to trickle down to more models in the future.
Ultimately, IDTechEx predicts that robotaxis services will expand, AV trucks will go through more testing phases and more vehicles will be equipped with LiDAR in 2023.
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