Self-driving cars are no longer a thing of the future. In fact, this industry has already been ventured on by both auto and tech companies alike. Car manufacturers like BMW, Mercedes and Tesla have been working on each of their self-driving car projects and tech giants like Google are also working their way towards a final output.
Self-Driving Cars: Market Analysis
BI Intelligence has created an in-depth report about the self-driving car market. According to the report, fully autonomous cars will highly likely debut in 2019. Business Insider defined self-driving car as any vehicle that can accelerate, steer and brake a car with little to no driver interaction. The report then categorizes the self-driving car into two classes: fully autonomous and semi-autonomous. It was said that these cars will probably debut in 2019 and reach ten million in number by 2020.
Since fully autonomous cars are subcategorized into user-operated and driverless, there's also the question of when both of these car types will enter the market. As per the report, the user-operated fully autonomous cars will be mainstreamed in the very near future. The other car type, on the other hand, may take a few more years before entering the market.
Self-Driving Cars' Progress
So far, the self-driving car industry is progressing quite rapidly. Google is already on the verge of finalizing its project as it completes about 646,000 miles of testing. According to sources, of all the companies who have been testing self-driving cars in 2016, Waymo (Google's self-driving car company) has logged the most miles in testing.
Cruise was able to test-run 10,000 miles while Nissan and Delphi have recorded figures within a few thousand miles. Mercedes and Tesla, on the other hand, have gone through hundreds of miles in testing. With that said, it's safe to say that things are going well in the self-driving car industry. If the tests all lead to positive results, the masses will be able to enjoy the benefit of the self-driving car technology in no time. It is expected that self-driving vehicles will make the roads safer for people and also significantly reduce the number of car accidents.
