With autonomous vehicles (like self-driving cars), the tech is the easy bit, but the really tricky part is the matter of liability, both civil and criminal.
That’s according to Ray O’Leary, assistant secretary at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.
“Self-driving cars are a transformative opportunity” he declared. There are sunny uplands ahead, but it will be a hell of a climb to get there.
“The government position is that there is no acceptable level of road deaths, but an autonomous vehicle is a one-ton killing machine that we can’t control.”
O’Leary pointed out that regions with the highest level of young-driver test, first-time pass rates are also the districts with the highest fatality rates.
Regulating human stupidity
“This proves that people can drive well if they want to, but it’s the level of human stupidity we try to regulate. It’s hard to change human behaviour.”
The Data Summit heard that we cannot under-estimate how genuinely disruptive the move to self-driving vehicles will be in how we organise our cities and lives. Connectivity, autonomy and fuel-efficiency will be key as we transform the meaning of mobility.
This will all develop under the matrix of a ‘post-ownership city’ and a younger generation who see mobility as a service and who prize access over ownership.
Social impact
Self-driving cars in a mixed-driving environment represent a huge challenge, and will have an enormous social impact, the Data Summit heard.
But a key requirement for progress is a network architecture of connectivity that has low latency and high bandwidth. Barry Napier, chief executive of Cubic Telecom, pointed out that self-driving cars need connectivity.
“With autonomous vehicles you can’t have a ‘down’ in the network. The speed of the network is key.”
Software will make cars lighter and more efficient. The driving experience, central to brands such as BMW and Audi, will no longer be centre stage, as other features become more important to young users, such as which entertainment streaming services are available, in-car.
“The social impact of this will be amazing,” said Napier. “My son will never buy a car,” he predicted.
Cubic Telecom has inked a €40-million deal with Qualcomm Inc for its software platform for cars, as well as being in talks with Audi and Volkswagen to embed its technology into their vehicles.
Cubic is also at the nexus of the potential €127-billion market for drone technology and unmanned aerial-goods delivery vehicles for firms such as Amazon and DHL.
Buying time for humans
Nokia Bell Labs’ head of research, Alessandra Sala, told the Summit that technology is essentially buying time for humans.
Everyone on the panel agreed that the future of mobility was both exciting and terrifying.