Back To The Future

- Anna Rich & Liesl Robertson

Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?

Your next car might drive itself. Don’t believe it? Every second car manufacturer has promised a driverless car by, for some reason, the year 2021. Last year, Ford said it would release one without a steering wheel. Soon after, Volvo and Uber announced their collaboration. Then in June this year, Audi announced it would be launching a series of cars with varying levels of autonomous driving technology. BMW is taking it right up to level five autonomy, which means no human intervention is needed.

In the meantime, in Lyon, France, two electric driverless buses tootle around at a sedate 10km per hour. They run near a tramway, as the tech isn’t quite there to allow them to weave in and out of traffic.

Over in the US, all eyes are on Tesla. CEO Elon Musk is ahead of the 2021 pack: ‘We’ll be able to do a demonstration guide of full autonomy all the way from home in LA to Times Square in New York, then have the car park itself by the end of next year,’ he said.

The year in question is this year. That’s right, 2017.

Progress, unfortunately, isn’t without hitches. In May last year, Joshua Brown, who had previously proudly posted a video of his Tesla driverless car avoiding a collision, became the first person to die in a self-driving vehicle. He was on autopilot on a Florida highway when the sensors failed to pick up a huge truck and trailer in the path: the white paintwork didn’t show up against the bright sky. Tesla said it was the only known fatality in just over 209 million km on autopilot. ‘Autopilot is getting better all the time, but it isn’t perfect and still requires the driver to remain alert.’