Self-driving cars

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A report by Bloomberg says Ford is going to skip a step and go straight to fully autonomous driving. The article says that is because engineers who are testing the company's self-driving vehicles are falling asleep at the wheel because there is so little for them to do. Ford tells me that only part of this story is true: "Reports that Ford engineers were falling asleep while testing autonomous vehicles are inaccurate." But it goes on to say that "high levels of automation without full autonomy capability could provide a false sense of security". That means it is difficult for the driver to suddenly take control if there is a situation where the technology is not up to it. And that's why it is going to head straight to what is known as SAE level four - "autonomous capability that will take the driver completely out of the driving process in defined areas". In January, at CES in Las Vegas, Ford's Ken Washington told me confidently that the company would have a fully autonomous car on the road by 2021: "The vehicles we are going to put in our 2021 fully autonomous ride service will not have a steering wheel, they won't have a brake pedal," he explained. "So this means there's no issue with drivers having to take over control because the vehicle will know how to handle all scenarios."

Driverless cars - no halfway house? - BBC News