乡亲们
Recent articles have added to the confusion regarding when fully autonomous vehicles will become common. One suggests that they around the corner with this quote:
谷歌母公司Alphabet计划于今年晚些时候推出自动驾驶服务，通用汽车旗下Cruise公司则计划在2019年推出类似服务。福特汽车公司表示，预计将在2021年前将自动驾驶车辆投入商业运营。
So it sounds like autonomous vehicles will be here this year or next. But wait, here is a counter article. This article points out the many issue to be resolved before fully self-driving cars are launched. Consider this one quote:
仍有许多问题需要解决。某些情况下，汽车必须违反交通法规才能继续行驶。常见的情形是：你在双向两车道的公路上行驶，前方有辆联邦快递卡车停靠在路边。 若要绕行就必须越过双黄线。你是否允许车辆违法？这便涉及到完全不同的规则体系、法规框架，甚至道德抉择。”
These two perspectives were brought home to me recently when I was on a review board for a student projects course, Technology Assessment, taught by friend and colleague Eric Bish. One of the projects was to assess the viability of bring fully autonomous vehicles to market by 2021. Reviewing this project helped to clarify the dichotomy between the two perspectives discussed above.
It ends up that the efforts of Alphabet, Ford and GM are to be launched in very controlled environments. They will be only used in well mapped out routes, with good lane markets, no construction on days with good weather etc.
Having an autonomous vehicle that can completely replace a human is still decades away. There are just too many issues such as the FedEx scenario envisioned above that need to be resolved. I believe that over time, more and more such issues will be discovered and push the date of such vehicles even farther in the future.
Even if, on the whole, early autonomous vehicles are safer, accidents like the one in Phoenix earlier this year, will put a spotlight on autonomous vehicles that will further delay their full advent.
What does all of this portent for the electronics industry? I think these issues will require more electronics and sensors than many believe, so in a sense it is good news for electronics.
干杯
罗恩博士
