This report has been jointly compiled with GTO!
In recent times, we've been reading, hearing and seeing a lot about autonomous cars...
Pictured -
BMW Vision and
GM Cruise AV.
The idea of cars that would drive on their own was something straight out of a Bond movie. If you had to open a thread on it when Team-BHP was a baby (2004), BHPians would've thought you are joking. The automobile industry & technology majors like Google however are making attempts to bring the same idea to reality. Still, notwithstanding the tech showcased by manufacturers like Tesla, some experts say that autonomous cars are a while away from driving on every kind of road in the USA, in every kind of weather. In India, considering our unique situation & infrastructure, the same seems like even more of a far-fetched dream (
related thread). Maybe we'll see a couple of CBU imports used for party tricks, but a mass adoption of autonomous cars is far, far away (
GTO doubts he'll see it in India in his lifetime). Note that we are talking about 'Level 5' autonomous cars here, i.e.
the real self-driving cars. To know more about the different levels of automation as specified by the SAE,
click here.
Listed below are the reasons why most of us are sceptical about a mass adoption of autonomous cars in India.
• Due to obvious reasons, human-driven cars & self-driving cars cannot co-exist on Indian roads. Many experts also agree to this = you need either 'only self-driving cars' on our roads, or only 'human-driven ones'. Just to crunch on some numbers here - the total number of registered vehicles in India was 21 crores as of March 31st, 2015 (
source). A report from 2016 said that 53,700 vehicles are registered in the country everyday (
source). In the next 10 years, we can safely assume that a further 25 crore vehicles - including 4 to 6 crore cars (at the very minimum) - will be added to our roads. Each vehicle in India has a life of at least 12 - 15 years. Which means, crores of human-driven cars are going to be around for a loooooooooooooooong time. This further delays the adoption of autonomous cars in the Indian market as the transition wouldn't be easy.
Waymo Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan on the left (
image source). Human-driven Kodiaq on the right
.
• Self-driving
cars - yes. What about
2-wheelers? How come no one spoke of them? If & when the day comes that all cars in India are autonomous, there is no way for 2-wheelers to join that club (worldwide focus is on autonomous cars only). India is the world's largest market for 2-wheelers (
related news) and the number is growing exponentially. The total number of 2-wheelers sold in the FY 2016-17 alone was almost 2 crores. This is unlike the country of self-driving cars - USA - where two-wheelers are nowhere as common. We already commented on how self-driving & human-driven vehicles cannot co-exist. But what about the crores of two-wheelers? They are the private vehicle of choice in India and aren't going anywhere too soon. Motorcycles & Scooters will
always play a dominant role in transportation here. It's entertaining just to think of a self-driving car surrounded by two-wheelers cutting it from all sides.
• Automatic transmissions have been around for almost a century. Despite that & their mass production, they cost about 1 lakh rupees more today (
not including the half-baked AMT here). Due to cost & fuel-efficiency reasons, ATs form a minuscule
single-digit percentage of car sales in India, even though they are best suited to our stop & go driving conditions. Now, do you think Indian car owners would pay a 4-lakh rupee premium (guesstimated) for self-driving car tech? FYI - the current cost is estimated to be ~$100,000 / 70 lakh rupees for self-driving tech per car (it will obviously come down with mass production).
Image Source -
UKAutodrive
• Self-driving cars can only perform "in a perfect world". But traffic rules are broken every second in India. If a self-driving car sees a green light, it's going to drive through - what about the fool coming fast from the side or taking a U-turn in front of you at the last minute? Not to forget, how is a self-driving car going to deal with broken traffic lights which are commonplace in India?
• How have urban roads & infrastructure in India changed, save for a couple of flyovers? A lot has been said about the bad road conditions in our country. Highways have improved significantly, yes, but city roads haven't. Self-driving cars need 'perfect' tarmac. Read = flawless road conditions which are rarely the case in India.
Image Credit -
Baadal Nanjundaswamy / Twitter
• Further to the previous point, autonomous cars need properly marked roads to know where to 'place' the car. How frequently do you see well-marked roads in India? Heck, forget markings, at times we aren't even able to see the road at all!
• Then, what about unmarked speed-breakers? If a self-driving car goes over an unmarked speed-breaker at 100 km/h (and it will), who is responsible for the resultant accident or vehicle damage?
• Things only get worse as you drive 50 km out of the city and hit rural roads. Read = narrow width, no markings & loads of potholes. It's impossible for a self-driving car to function in such conditions.
• The speed limits that we have on Indian roads can get ridiculous in many spots. However, self-driving cars will
always follow the speed limit because of - among other reasons - legal liabilities. The Mumbai-Pune expressway's speed limit is 80 km/h, yet we'll all agree that 100 km/h is safe & ideal. That's what everyone else does too. Translated = in your autonomous car, you'll be driving on the expressway at a snail's pace in the leftmost lane.
Image Source -
Mid-Day
• Not only will a self-driving car be slower on the highway, it will be slower in the city too. Indian traffic is bad - one of the worst around the globe. No wonder the founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson said this in a recent
press conference Quote:
I have sat in Indian traffic every time I have come here, it’s not a pleasant experience, and if I were an Indian, a lot of my life would have been spent sitting in traffic jams. This is a miserable way of spending one’s life.
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The average driving speed in Mumbai can be as low as 13 km/h! Guess what? In a self-driving car, you might be even slower as they drive
extremely conservatively. An autonomous car would maintain a safe distance from all sides with respect to other road users. Can't even imagine them being able to properly work on crowded roads where other vehicles / 2-wheelers / pedestrians are 2 inches away from your car. Anyone who has driven a Volvo in India knows how its safety systems go berserk in our traffic. It is safe to assume that self-driving cars will be much slower getting from point A -> B in India (they already are even in the USA).
Image Source:
mensxp
• An overwhelming majority of Indian drivers exhibit poor road sense. There's a dedicated thread on the forum for bad drivers too -
link. How is a self-driving car going to react to a driver in the middle of two lanes? Or someone who has left an indicator on, but turns the other way? I'm guessing occupants of self-driving cars would be one frustrated lot.
• IMHO, a situation like this (which we face every day) will lead to a self-driving car's
system freezing!
Or what a BHPian recently went through (
related thread)? In India, just 2 out of 10 drivers will follow all expected systems & rules (
ratio is probably the opposite in USA).
• Indian roads are full of small junctions without traffic lights or stop signs. Adding fuel to the fire, Indians will
always try to hustle their way through them. Just thinking of a self-driving car
waiting endlessly at such a junction is amusing
Image source:
The New Indian Express
• Will a self-driving car be able to handle a bullock cart coming the wrong way in the fast lane? Or worse still, a bus coming straight at you at 80 km/h?
• Self-driving cars need precise mapping. Although things are improving (thanks to Google Maps), it's far from perfect. We've all had Google Maps take us the wrong way in a 1-way lane, or dead ends (
related thread). Maps are the bare essential tool needed for self-driving cars to function.
• In India, it is ridiculously simple, cheap & painless to file a criminal case against anyone. Which company will be willing to carry the legal liability for an unproven tech in the imperfect conditions of India? Any such car or tech company would be inundated with lawsuits. They would perhaps need more lawyers on their payroll than they have engineers!!!
• And then of course, we have people attempting insurance scams like shown in the video below. Remember, India is a rare country where 50-rupee car monograms are stolen. We can visualize scamsters hiding behind a tree, intentionally jumping right in front of the self-driving car at the last second and then demanding compensation from the car owner.
• It's a double-whammy for us - Not only does India have high crime levels, but the response time from the police or emergency services can be frustratingly slow. Imagine you're arriving home late at night in a self-driving car. A band of thieves comes ahead and blocks your ride.
The cautious self-driving car won't evade them, drive around them or reverse away in a hurry. It'll most likely just stay put. Our streets are filled with thugs, especially at night. Additionally, self-driving cars won't be breaking any rules. Stopping at a red light in a crime-infested lonely area at 3 a.m. might be dangerous.
• Compared to the USA, self-driving cars will need a whole lot more data to just understand the Indian mentality on roads. And even then, some idiots are so unpredictable that it's impossible to list every scenario into the code. Tesla & Google are struggling to make self-driving cars work in developed countries...would they ever be able to in India?
• Okay, this one is a bit closer to home, but where's the driving pleasure? BHPians will always prefer to drive their own cars. Good thing we aren't changing our favourite sticker to '
Live to be driven' anytime soon.
• Due to the reasons listed above, we think that autonomous cars remain a pipe dream in India. While some manufacturers keep bragging about their capabilities, Gill Pratt, CEO of Toyota Research Institute - has a more realistic view. He says:
Quote:
None of us in the automobile or IT industries are close to achieving true Level 5 autonomy, we are not even close.
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Image Source -
Waymo
• At least in the short to mid-term, at best we'll be seeing high-end cars with some autonomous capabilities showing off. Think Mercedes S-Class' and Volvo XC90s. But the tech is a long way off from the mass market.
• Ending on a lighter note, wonder how our traffic
hawaldars would react to an autonomous car...