In
the European region, about 230 people each day and approximately 83,000 people
every year die due to road accidents, according to the World Health
Organization. While vehicles have made life immensely easy for everyone, road
traffic, deaths, and serious injuries caused because of road accidents and
crashes are the ugly side of road transportation. Road accidents can be mainly
attributed to human error; drivers’ failure to pay attention, keeping unsafe
distance from the vehicle moving in front, and inappropriate speed are just some
errors which lead to road fatalities. Because of these reasons, there is a
growing need for a safer and more-efficient driving option. Autonomous cars are
expected to become the go-to option for people, who want to prioritize safe
road transportation, in the coming years.
Such
cars can be semi-autonomous or fully autonomous: semi-autonomous cars are not
self-driving but may be able to deaccelerate, accelerate, or stop without human
intervention, depending on their level of automation. A fully autonomous car, however,
does not require a human to drive them safely, as these vehicles have software
and sensors to navigate, control, and drive themselves. In the coming years,
the European autonomous car market for fully autonomous models is
predicted to reach 4.0 million units, advancing with a CAGR of 37.4%, as per
P&S Intelligence. The demand for commercial autonomous cars is expected to
be more than that for personal ones in the near future. This would be due to
the rising deployment of fully autonomous cars for commercial purposes. The car
ownership scenario is also changing in the European region because of the
increasing availability of shared autonomous cars.
The
use of autonomous cars as mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) is projected to result
in their increasing demand. Risk factors, such as those related to car crashes
(as mentioned above), are quite high in traditional car sharing services. Due
to this, service providers are expected to focus on the autonomous technology,
and large fleet operators are predicted to be among the early adopters of fully
autonomous cars. Furthermore, since the operational cost of conventional cars
is higher, ride sharing services on autonomous cars will be much more
cost-effective for service providers. Because of all these advantages,
different car manufacturers and technology companies are increasing their focus
on the development of autonomous taxis or robo-taxis. Take for instance Navya,
a French start-up, which launched its first autonomous taxi in 2018. Similarly,
Waymo and Alphabet have joined forces in order to introduce robo-taxi services
in Europe in the near future.
The
integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the automotive industry has made
possible the development of level 4 and 5 autonomous cars. The development of
several technologies, such as virtual assistance, driver monitoring, natural
language interface, gesture recognition, speech recognition, and eye tracking, has
been due to the penetration of AI. In addition to this, AI has also helped in
the development of the advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS), which includes
driver condition evaluation systems, radar-based detection units, camera-based
machine vision systems, and sensor fusion engine control units. Thus, because
of the integration of AI, the demand for autonomous cars in the European region
is predicted to increase significantly in the coming years.
