Self-Driving Cars To Have A Big Impact In Just 10 Years

A study by the IHS predicts that self-driving cars with driver control and self-driving cars without driver control will be on the road by 2025 and 2030 respectively. The study also predicts sales in self-driving cars will reach a total of 54 million self-driving cars globally by 2035.

The study anticipates that nearly all of the vehicles in use are likely to be self-driving cars or self-driving commercial vehicles sometime after 2050. In terms of pricing, the report states that between $7,000 up to $10,000 will be added to a car’s current pricing if the owner wants it to have a self-driving car package, a price that is estimated to drop to $5,000 by 2030 or $3,000 by 2035.

The good thing about this is that there will be near zero accidents on the road as well as traffic congestion and air pollution declination, as Egil Juliussen, principal analyst for infotainment and autonomous driver assisted systems at IHS Automotive, states.

“Accident rates will plunge to near zero for SDCs, although other cars will crash into SDCs, but as the market share of SDCs on the highway grows, overall accident rates will decline steadily,” Juliussen says. “Traffic congestion and air pollution per car should also decline because SDCs can be programmed to be more efficient in their driving patterns.” he adds.

The bad comes with software reliability and cyber security. Nothing can be 100% secure, yet alone a self-driving car on the streets. Hack that, and you have yourself a toy that you can control with your smartphone. However, several automakers have said publicly they will have autonomous cars by 2020, or earlier. Autonomous car technology is already affecting driver assist systems such as adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, and collision mitigating brake systems.

Additionally, the IHS study says the first group of autonomous cars will have so-called Level 3 capability – limited self-driving that enables the driver to cede full control of all safety-critical functions under certain traffic and environmental conditions and includes auto pilot for highway travel and parking. Coming later in the decade will be SDCs with Level 4 capability – self-driving but with human controls.

Thank you IHS for providing us with this information