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BMW Says Self-Driving Car To Be Level 5 Capable In Five Years (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.

German carmaker BMW is on track to deliver a self-driving car by 2021, the company's senior vice president for Autonomous Driving, Elmar Frickenstein, said on Thursday. From a report: "We are on the way to deliver a car in 2021 with level 3, 4 and 5," Frickenstein told a panel discussion in Berlin, explaining the vehicle will have different levels of autonomy, depending on how and where it is used. A level 5 vehicle is capable of navigating roads without any driver input, while a level 3 car still needs a steering wheel and a driver who can take over if the car encounters a problem.

12 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Five years? by freeze128 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hell! I'm Level 5 right NOW.

    BTW: WTF is Level 5?

  2. blinker too? by Frederic54 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It would be cool is future BMW have blinkers, because all the ones I see on the road do not!

    --
    "Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
  3. Re:No one can afford german, not my generation by GrumpySteen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So you can't afford a $17k VW Jetta, but you're confident that the $30k Tesla 3 will replace it in the market?

    Are you Joe the Plumber?

  4. Yawn. by Ichijo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the vehicle will have different levels of autonomy, depending on how and where it is used.

    So it's autonomous except when it isn't.

    Wake me when we have a car that's full-time Level 5.

    --
    Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    1. Re:Yawn. by b0bby · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If it can drive 80% or more of a 200 mile trip, I'm buying one. I can handle the edge cases myself for a few more years.

    2. Re:Yawn. by MadCow42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, that's only valid if the 80% or more of the trip that it CAN handle are known ahead of time. If the 20% of cases that it can't handle are "surprise, there's a deer on the road ahead!" or "surprise, the guy in front of you slammed on his brakes!", then you still have to sit there 100% of the time ready to react.

      you need 100% confidence that the care is fully capable of handling EVERYTHING that comes up for the next XYZ minutes/hours/miles/whatever to be able to really have a useful Level 5.

      Personally I'd rather be driving the car than sitting there prepared to take over just in case something goes wrong. Until I'm not needed at all for driving, I'll keep the control thank you.

      --
      I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
    3. Re:Yawn. by Immerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      At least far enough ahead of time to give you take a few minutes to wake up and figure out what's going on before you have to take control.

      I mean I'm totally fine with "hey, there's snow/mudslides/migrating crabs covering the road, and I'm not sure what to do, so I'll pull over while I wake you up to decide what to do."

      For the faulty, over-hyped present though there's far too much "I'm confused. Catch!" going on. Or worse, "I misunderstood what I thought I saw, goodbye." I'll keep control myself, thanks.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    4. Re:Yawn. by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Reacting to stuff in the road in front of you like your 2 examples is the easy stuff where automation is already better than you are.

    5. Re:Yawn. by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Flying is hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of pure terror.
      Pilots train long and hard for this.

  5. Re:So what? by Altus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suspect you will see a pretty big shift in what makes a car desirable when self driving cars become the norm, its hard to say if ownership will even be as common as it is now, it seems unlikely that kids who grow up in a family that has a self driving car will ever learn to drive.

    I suspect that more and more, in car entertainment, comfort, ride smoothness and fuel economy/range will be the primary things used to market cars in the future and not the ultimateness of the driving machine.

    --

    "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

  6. Re:So what? by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wanta drive, kid? Show how much you want it by learning how or take public transportation.

    The problem is needing to drive in the first place.

    In places with good public transportation (e.g., Europe), you don't need to drive - you can get around pretty damn effectively with just public transportation. Hell, you can even get between cities taking the trains and planes and never needing to step in a car.

    Problem is, then you go to places like North America, where the vast majority of cities are car-only. Walking only gets you from one big box store to another (assuming you can cross that 10 lane highway in-between them), and public transit is non-existent. There you less WANT to drive but instead NEED to drive.

    Driving's a chore. It's something most drivers in North America don't want to do (as evidenced by their attention being held elsewhere, typically on small handheld devices). What needs to be done is eliminating the need to drive, so those who drive are those that want to.

  7. Missing the point of Level 5 by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He's totally missing the point of the definitions. Level 3 is "can drive autonomously, in some conditions, with occasional human intervention". Level 4 is "can drive autonomously, in some conditions, without human intervention". Level 5 is "can drive autonomously, in any conditions that a human can drive in, without human intervention". Saying "We can do Level 3, 4, or 5, depending on the conditions" is saying "We can do Level 3".