I’ve worked on the cutting edge of driverless car technology for the past 5 years. But it seems that for big players like Audi, Tesla and other auto manufacturers, safety & driverless car technology has become more of a PR gimmick. High end cars which can afford to have this technology installed are still advertised as being the fastest from 0 to 60 mph. If car/motorcycle manufacturers are really concerned about driver safety then don’t advertise the vehicles as being speed machines.
Both these sentiments are at great odds with each other. I was quite disappointed when at the unveiling of the new Tesla D, Elon Musk said that the “car is like a personal roller coaster”. Do we really need a roller coaster on the road? And over this weekend, Audi had their driverless RS7 driving around an “empty” race track. Well, to be fair, Google is only trying to find futuristic ways to track users and sell more location based ads. I guess the reason for it is that safety is boring. Speed actually thrills and sells.
Unless the big players make a concerted effort to change buyer sentiment and ideas, driverless car technology will take another 25 years to become mainstream.