Drive Wise: Kia’s Response to Autonomous Car Race

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 ‘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.

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.

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!

The Future of Autonomous Cars

We have all seen the sci-fi films that include smart technology, self-driving cars, and even hover-cars but how close are we to bringing that technology into the hands of consumers? Well, in the case of smart cars and driverless car technology, some might say that we are already there. Many of the big brands in the automotive industry are working together with tech companies to create fully autonomous cars for the masses, but there are still a few hurdles to overcome.

 

What is an Autonomous Car?

First things first, let’s understand a bit about the idea of autonomous cars and how they work. The idea of having cars drive themselves is not a new one, for decades the thought of simply getting into your car and telling it where to go has been used for ideas in books, films and on the television.

A truly autonomous car is a vehicle that not only will pick you up from a specific location but will able to take you to your destination without knowing the route, traffic conditions or if there is even a road to take you there.

The idea is that an autonomous car will be able to gather this information “live” as it travels along the route, much like how people drive cars. Avoiding traffic and accidents is just a part of the car learning how to deal with situations.

Many tech companies such as Google have been working with car companies to produce the computer that will make these decisions. Google has access to patented technology in this field, as well as using its own GPS-based Google maps system to accurately and intelligently create a driving route that can take into account traffic, accidents and other hazards.

Although we are not at the stage where we can drive cars that learn as they go, the big tech companies are getting closer every day.

Real World Applications Right Now

Many different companies such as Volvo and Mercedes as well as many others whose cars can adjust their braking according to hazards that may be in front of them, as well as correcting steering that can bring a car back into a lane, via the use of a limited radar, infra-red and laser systems incorporated into the vehicles computer and navigation system.

Ford is one of the biggest brands to introduce self-parking technology into the mainstream, whereby a vehicle is driven past a parking spot whilst the self-parking button is pressed, the car via the use of a number of cameras and sensors accurately measures the parking space and then beeps to tell the driver when it is ready.

After this, and as if by magic, the car starts to perform all of the necessary brakings, steering and reversing and acceleration commands it needs to place the car safely into the parking spot. Many more manufacturers are jumping onto this impressive technology, and it is only a matter of time before this type of computer-aided driving assistance is implemented across all cars made.

 

The Future Is Bright for Driver-less Cars

Driverless car technology is still in its infancy, but with many more countries such as some states of the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as Australia, the governments have given the go-ahead to start to test driverless vehicles on the streets.

The sooner these cars are tested in the real world, the sooner we will see their introduction. When all of the bugs are ironed out, we will see autonomous vehicles making deliveries, automated driving on the highways as well as having a much safer and possibly cheaper driving experience as personal driving insurance prices may collapse and entire industries need to rethink their business models, making for a bright, but somewhat confusing future of autonomous vehicles on our streets.