Driving Will be Outlawed by 2050, says IDTechEx

01 September 2021: Autonomous cars will match or exceed human safety by 2024, after which they will grow rapidly at a CAGR of 30% finds IDTechEx’s new report ‘Autonomous Cars, Robotaxis & Sensors 2022–2042’. By the 2040s, they will be capable of fulfilling the world’s mobility needs without a single collision.

For a long time, the parameters around how we can drive our vehicles have been restricted. Speed limits exist to increase safety, seatbelts are mandated to increase safety, and city centers are becoming pedestrianized to increase safety for pedestrians.

An example is Barcelona, Spain, where super-blocks exist to create large car-free areas. These areas are not only safer for pedestrians but also improve local air quality and create a greener, more pleasant space within the city.

In other cities, clean air zones are already controlling the type of vehicle allowed in cities. As the maturity of autonomy increase,s it is conceivable that these zones could become autonomous-only, to improve inner-city pedestrian safety, then rolled out to entire cities, mandating that travel inside the city may only be conducted by autonomous drivers.

Eventually, manual driving could become completely illegal on public roads in the interest of safety. This is not to say that manual driving will completely disappear but may be relegated to a sport, reserved for racing and track days.

The IDTechEx report covers safety and regulation, a key barrier for adoption. One trend identified is with vehicle safety certifiers mandating higher levels of automated safety, and the inclusion of sensors such as radar. An example is Tesla losing its top safety rating from the NHTSA when they removed radar from the Model 3 and Model Y in May, which ironically, improves the system, according to Tesla.

Autonomous drivers are constantly aware, never distracted by mobile phones, other drivers, or other such things which can occupy a human’s attention. Autonomous vehicles will be connected with 5G and receive more information about their surroundings than human drivers could ever see or process.

www.IDTechEx.com/autonomouscar