When Are AVs Coming? (10 Car Companies Say Within the Next 5 Years…)

Although this blog likes to focus on the secondary effects of technologies and not on the technologies themselves, the arrival timeline of the technologies will have a profound impact on what secondary effects we will be seeing when.  With that in mind, we are bending our rules a bit to share a recent article that documents the timeline for AVs for the 11 top auto companies.  The level of automation targeted is Level 3 (car drives and human is backup – such as what exists today with Uber cars in Pittsburgh among other places) and Level 4 (car drives and no human backup needed, but in limited environments – often urban ones and not in bad weather).

In short, the predictions are closer than you might think ranging from later this year to 2030 on the far end, but with all manufacturers predicting at least Level 3 Automation within the next five years.  While these will be in limited (probably urban and freeway) environments, it will begin to unleash many of the secondary effects we have been discussing on this blog.  Change is coming fast – we need to prepare.

Here is a quick table based on the findings from the article:

(Click on table for larger view)

Compiled by nlarco/SCI – from https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/04/self-driving-car-timeline-for-11-top-automakers/