Autonomy: Fantasy vs reality

This story first appeared in the February issue of EVtalk – CLICK HERE to download the magazine FREE

While Australian government ministers intend having a regulatory system for autonomous vehicles by 2020, New Zealand is still grappling with the issue.

We’re promoted as a suitable driverless test venue, particularly as current legislation doesn’t necessarily mean a driver has to be behind the wheel.

But a December Autonomous Vehicles Research Report says there’s “large uncertainty surrounding the assignment of liability” and updated regulations would provide “clarity, transparency and confidence”.
This Autotalk Australia report has lessons for us too.

National Transport Commission chief executive Paul Retter, who’s spoken on autonomous vehicle regulation frameworks several times in the past two years, tells Behind the Wheel we’re still some way off seeing hands-free motoring in the mainstream.

“Ministers have agreed to a goal of having an end-to-end regulatory system in place by 2020 to support the safe, commercial deployment of automated vehicles at all levels of automation.

“This is an important milestone. We want to give certainty to manufacturers by ensuring our regulatory system is flexible and responsive to encourage innovation,” he says, while reassuring that little can proceed without enforcement.

Retter says national enforcement guidelines need adjusting so police have the ability to apply the road rules to automated vehicles.
“These guidelines provide clarity around who is in control of a vehicle at different levels of automation.

“They also determine that having hands on the wheel is no longer an indicator of having proper control when conditional automation is safely engaged.”
AutoTalk spoke to Carsales head of strategy Henny Durvall about the shortening car buyer’s journey late last year.

After her countless hours poring over mountains of consumer-focused data, one of her comments about the average person’s perception of autonomous and electric vehicles stands out.

“I don’t think anybody’s actually told the consumer,” she says.
“Lots of people working in the auto industry in Australia know they’ll be prevalent. But lots of people I talk to just think it’s not coming.

“It’s a utopian ideal and it is happening but the consumer doesn’t know about it. We haven’t really started the communication and education process.”

As last year began to wrap up, experts presented their thoughts on the reality of implementing autonomous vehicles in Australia at a small free public forum in Melbourne’s CBD.

While there have been occasions when a Bosch-branded Tesla has been autopiloted around Albert Park or a Volvo SUV cut driverless laps in Adelaide, the Australian public hasn’t really seen much autonomous action.
Several things are keeping us from joining the fray, including regulation which, as the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) reminds us, is probably a good thing.

TAC road safety technical and policy manager Samantha Buckis says there’s still a lot to get through.
“There are licensing changes, legislation changes, infrastructure changes that need to occur in order to facilitate autonomous vehicles.

“We can build a system that protects us from our mistakes – our incentive is vehicle safety, which began with encouraging five-star ANCAP vehicles and is now about trying to take fallible humans out of the loop.”

Buckis says proceeding with caution is a wise policy.
“Our focus is understanding what the safety benefits may be; if they actually exist; questioning ‘Are we assuming they’ll happen?’; and knowing what the side effects will be.

“Basically we’re asking, ‘Are we creating another problem by trying to solve another?’”
Buckis says a lot needs to happen to bring autonomous vehicles to Australia, including physical testing and trialling.

She also admits realising the safety benefits won’t always sell with the public.

“We have to make sure these vehicles don’t compromise other aspects of road safety,” she says.
“We’ve always had difficulty in the past understanding the safety benefits of vehicle safety features.
“We’ve traditionally had to wait for real-world data to make decisions and often that data is reliant on Europe or the United States where they regularly get safety features before us.”

Cautionary tales are called that for a reason, she says.

“We need to ensure what we’re promoting to the community is going to be safe, because in the past safety technology touted as the next big thing has come along and then you get side effects of behavioural adaptation where the benefits aren’t necessarily realised.
“Being government, being the slow ‘Debbi Downer’ and not being as free as the private sector, especially when using public money, we need to rely on strong evidence before acting or promoting.

“We have high expectations of human drivers, but as soon as they do wrong we let them know or get upset and then five minutes later we do the same thing.
“It will take time getting people to adapt to autonomy.”

The TAC is definitely monitoring what’s happening, and Buckis says the ideal would be not to need the organisation anymore.
“There are people at the TAC who look after people who’ve been involved in crashes. I’d like to not have to do this job.”

Linfox senior analyst Andrew Porter says the trucking industry has an equally measurable role to play when it comes to both the potential benefits and the deficits – and not just for trucking specifically.
“The quality of Australian roads is one real driver of autonomous vehicle uptake,” Porter says.

“Linfox operates one of the largest automotive testbeds near Anglesea in Victoria called the Australian Automotive Research Centre.

“One of the reasons it gets such good business is because if you’re testing any degree of autonomous vehicle, as Bosch and Tesla have found out, it has difficulty handling just the colour variation of Australian roads, let alone the poor lane markings.

“Ironically, the last few kilometres down to our test facility is actually corrugated rock,” he laughs.
“We’ve worked with the likes of Tesla to give them a truly Australian experience to develop autonomous cars for us because North American conditions don’t necessarily work here.”
Porter is optimistic but realistic about what the change will mean for trucking.

“I broadly agree that the cost will be a big driver for people with autonomous vehicles.

“For us, a lot of the traditional direct, linehaul, point-to-point, long-distance transport tasks are likely to change. We’re going to have drivers around for a very long time, but at the moment a lot of their task is very monotonous.

“Anything that can make their task easier is something we’ll focus on.”
On the future powertrain front, Porter says long-distance commercial driving tasks are going to be very difficult for an electric vehicle but autonomy could play a part because “distraction is common”.

“We have a ‘Vision Zero’ motto, which looks at similar metrics to the TAC, that we use to reduce risk.
“But are you going to be able to automate a fuel tanker to go and drop its load at a service station while service stations still exist? I don’t know.

“These are the sorts of things people don’t think about – it’s not always going to be just a matter of whether or not your next car is going to be electric or fuel cell-powered.”

Analysing risk in the trucking industry is an important innovator for safety in a mobile workplace with a high potential for accidents, Porter says.
“The average age of our drivers is about 53-54 years.

“Drivers are paid quite well and drivers doing those really long drives in vehicles like fuel tankers tend to be the most skilled drivers in our industry, but they’ve got an even higher average age .

“So there’s a trend where the most skilled tend to be the oldest and they might be the best paid but they’ve got the most amount of danger involved.”

Trucking has to be open to evolution to combat this, Porter says.
“We’ve seen different views of how long the automation pathway will take.

“We constantly get vendors of level-two truck platooning coming to us with prototypes, and it hasn’t taken long for semi-autonomous features to make it into cars.

“Because of the nature of the work in our industry, automation will take longer than with cars.
“Forklifts and mining vehicles are already automated and make potentially dangerous jobs safer for people.

And that means they can do other, safer tasks.”

Porter says the Victorian government’s move toward a licensing system where autonomous vehicle operators are held responsible for an accident is crucial progress.

“As a substantial user of the road network, it’s really important for us that our trucks can deal with human drivers.

“That’s going to be the challenge ahead as it takes a long time for cars of varying automation to be purchased by consumers.
“You and your car are only going to be as smart as the car next to you.”

Talking about cars, Carsales editor-in-chief Mike Sinclair – who has “driven” several iterations of autonomy – is adamant that following the money will show the safety benefits of autonomy will need data-based evidence.

“This next-event horizon is all about partial autonomy and what that can do for safety,” he says.

“The quickest measurers of safety and cost are insurance companies.
“They’re already offering insurance discounts on vehicles with AEB. If that doesn’t tell you a story straight away, then I’m not in the communications business.”

But Sinclair warns autonomy could mean manufacturing design changes, for better and worse.
“The two major parts of a vehicle that will change are the crash structure and the powertrain,” he says.

“Electric powertrains won’t significantly reduce the mass of the vehicle but with the crash structure, if you have vehicles that cannot crash into each other, all of a sudden the crash structure becomes redundant.

“All of a sudden a vehicle which used to weigh 2200kg now weighs 1200kg.”

At worst, crash testing could be compromised and it could mean years of crumple zone re-engineering.
“That will have energy, economic and safety benefits.

He recalls insights learned from one of the biggest safety and autonomy names in the business.

“We were having a conversation with the Volvo safety team in Gothenburg (Sweden) who say, if you wanted a concept where you were going to put people in a metal tin and let them drive within a foot of each other at a 100kmh closing distance… no government in the world would let that happen.”
But that hasn’t stopped countries finding ways to learn and trial how autonomous vehicles will change the future of transport, he says.
“The Korean car culture is much closer to America than Japan. Their cars are bigger, their roads are bigger, they drive fast.

“The automatic cruise control on the latest Hyundai slows down for speed cameras. The same technology can already autonomously stop you speeding, so we may see speed cameras disappear.

“It’s about how much of a lack of amenity people are going to accept.”

As self-imposed manufacturer and government deadlines draw closer, it seems there is still much to learn before we hand over the wheel to artificial intelligence.