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| Image: www.kia.com |
We’ve all thought about how amazing it would be to have a car that drove itself, meaning you could just sit back and enjoy the ride, rather than worrying about getting yourself to your destination safely. While science fiction has always pushed the idea that flying cars are the next frontier, the fully autonomous automobile seems to be the next step.
And it sounds like this is soon to become a reality as it’s really only a matter of time before this technology comes to fruition. Kia has recently announced its plan to build fully self-driving cars and have them released as soon as 2030. Yes, the future is here! Let’s take a look at some of the details of this announcement and what we can expect.
Kia’s Plan: Up to 2020
Kia’s Plan: Up to 2020
Kia’s ‘Drive Wise’ campaign was announced in January this year, one of many initiatives on the part of car industry players to allocate more funding to autonomous driving technology. The figure being thrown around is a massive $2 billion in the next couple of years Kia, which will go towards moving developing various technologies to reduce the reliance on human drivers.
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| Image: www.kia.com |
Other automotive companies including Tesla, Volvo, Volkswagen and BMW are also going down this path and improving this technology is seen to be the next big step in creating a competitive advantage in the industry.
How Autonomous Will These Cars Be?
The progress toward completely autonomous cars will take place over a number of years, as do most technological advancements. But very soon we’re looking at the possibility of incorporating emergency braking, automatic cruise control, self-parking and highway driving in Kia cars. Reports suggest that this could happen as soon 2020.
By 2030 however, the plan is to have a fully autonomous car, meaning your vehicle can pick drop you off wherever you need to go, drive itself home (meaning you don’t have to worry about parking fees) and come back when you’re ready to be picked up. It’s really quite amazing that this sort of technology is just around the corner.
The Future: Beyond 2020
Though it’s certainly decades away, the potential for the autonomous car is huge. Who knows, down the line w, could be talking about completely automatic flying cars - it’s possible people won’t have any idea how to drive and AI will take cars to all the destinations.
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| Image: www.kia.com |
Kia is also looking at improving and developing other technological aspects of owning and operating a car, including fingerprint scanning being required to access the cars functions and driver preferences. In addition, videos screened by KIA also suggested that technology will be developed where car owners have watches from which they can summon their vehicle, from wherever they are.
Kia prototype autonomous car will soon be tested in Nevada, one of the few US states that is offering licenses for such development and hopefully will be released in the market by 2030. We’re very excited about these developments and hope to bring more news to our blog on the progress soon!
