Autonomous Vehicles
Industry Outlook and Investment Opportunities
INTRODUCTION
Fully autonomous, self-driving cars may be just years away. The Society of Automotive Engineers determines the intelligence level and automation capabilities of vehicles, ranking them 0 through 5. Most autonomous vehicles are Level 2, including the entirety of Tesla’s product line. The only Level 3 vehicle currently available to consumers is the Audi A8, requiring the presence of a human driver but with the capacity to maneuver independently on major roads. Level 4 autonomous vehicles, capable of navigation without human intervention, are of great interest to manufacturers.
BACKGROUND
Auto manufacturers are racing to reach the Level 4 benchmark. This year, carmakers like Honda are planning to release Level 3 vehicles and are shifting their focus towards the development of Level 4 vehicles. Honda plans to release the new generation of autonomous vehicles by 2024. Companies like Waymo, Yandex, and Baidu are not original equipment manufacturers; they commercially retrofit cars and refine technology developed by OEMs such as Qualcomm and Ford. While projections toward the beginning of the decade following the computer vision breakthroughs afforded by the advent of complex, GPU-enabled neuro-nets projected Level 4 autonomous vehicles becoming available by 2020, it is expected that some US-based companies will achieve this by… read the full report here