Related News
Daimler sees self-drive car sales by 2020
Print Edition
Germany’s Daimler AG plans to start selling a self-driving car by 2020 as part of its campaign to regain the top spot among premium carmakers, its development chief said.
Carmakers and suppliers across the world are working on ways to make driving safer and more comfortable through automation, and the race is on to bring the technology to the mass market.
“We want to be the first to launch autonomous functions in production vehicles. You can be sure: we will accomplish that in this decade,” Daimler head of development Thomas Weber said.
Daimler, battling to regain the top stop in the luxury car market from German rival BMW, is focusing on so-called highly automated driving, in which cars master situations such as cruising the motorway or maneuvering through traffic jams while the driver relaxes.
The car would recognize difficult situations such as dealing with traffic lights or urban driving among pedestrians and cyclists, and hand control back to the human behind the wheel.
Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz and Smart cars, is not alone in its ambitions. Japan’s Nissan, for example, has also announced plans to launch a car completely guided by computers this decade.
Testing is already under way in many countries. Google has fitted out several cars with radar-like equipment that lets them navigate roads in California and Nevada.
The technology will feature at this week’s Frankfurt car show, the world’s biggest, although experts say the move from dream to reality will likely take 10 to 15 years.
German auto supplier Continental aims to enable cars to drive themselves at speeds of up to 30 kilometers per hour by 2016, and at up to 60 km/h by 2020.
Google is reportedly discussing an alliance with Continental on self-driving cars that could be announced as soon as this week.
Weber said it was hard to forecast exactly when drivers would turn into passengers in their own cars.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
