AI has become one of the most sought-after technologies of recent times. Most organizations globally are investing in AI RnD to gain a competitive edge. This is fascinating to see how AI is making most of the previously unthinkable tasks real and beneficial for society at large.
One of the latest buzz around AI is autonomous vehicles. AVs or self-driving cars are capable of driving with little to no human input. They perform all the necessary tasks such as acceleration, braking, and turning on their own, requiring little or no input from a human driver. The adoption of AI supports self-driving vehicles in various operations such as vehicle navigation, communication, sensors, and maintaining fuel efficiency and safety. AI can detect people, bumps, speed breakers on the road. They can follow speed limits, road patterns, look for alternate ways, and many more decisions replicating a driver.
Fuel efficiency and safety are considered the most significant advantages of autonomous vehicles by the majority of experts. As a result, autonomous technology is the current revolution in the automotive industry. Key manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Apple, Tesla, and Google are in the race to become industry leaders in AI-driven cars.
Chief Executive Elon Musk in 2020 said, “Tesla is “very close” to achieving level 5 autonomous driving technology. I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level 5 autonomy complete this year.” This definitely looks like the biggest news and quite fascinating for the world too. With the success of Tesla in the US, the landscape for the automotive market is set to transition globally.
Let’s look into other benefits these AVs are going to bring to the world:
- Fuel Efficiency– Owing to the concept of eco-driving, autonomous vehicles considerably bring down fuel consumption. Aggressive acceleration or deceleration and leaving the engine on during long traffic stops results in higher energy wastage. Real-time traffic sensing contributes to eco-driving practices.
- Increased Safety– Most road accidents are said to be caused by human error. This is exactly why AI-powered driverless vehicles are called safe. There are 1.35 million deaths worldwide due to vehicle crashes every year, most of them associated with human error.
- Reduced Labour Costs- In labor-intensive industries like this, labor cost makes a lot of difference. With driverless cars, the associated costs can be reduced, and hence the same manpower can be used for more productive assignments.
- Decreased Emissions- Owing to fuel efficiency and wise real-time road traffic monitoring with smart start and stop the gas emissions can be reduced to great extents.
- Reduced Transportation Costs- All the above-mentioned cost reductions eventually would lead to reduced transportation costs. AVs are more likely to be used for heavy transportation purposes like tractor-trailers owing to the ease of navigating on highways.
Most experts in the Indian automotive industry believe that there is an immense potential for autonomous vehicles; however, there is a need for a lot of development, infrastructure, wireless connectivity, and legal setup for AVs to be successfully running on the roads. The Indian market is also starting on these lines with partial automation for cars with simpler levels of autonomy, such as cruise control and V2V systems. The largest tractor manufacturer in the world by volume, Mahindra & Mahindra is already way ahead in its efforts for a fully automated tractor.
As per the Road Accident Report for 2019, a total number of 449,002 accidents took place in the country during the calendar year 2019leading to 151,113 deaths and 451,361 injuries. With such high numbers and the global automotive market transitioning, India has to speed up the infrastructural development, focus it towards creating a more cohesive environment for AVs, and invest in more RnD with genius Indian engineers who are making a mark globally.
Source: indiaai.gov.in
