Author: Pia Laube
On 23 March 2015 the Innovation Centre for Mobility and Societal Change (InnoZ) hosted the third Berlin Future Mobility Meetup. Uniting key industry players as well as the Berlin mobility startup scene, the event explored how the digital revolution will impact the mobility sector in the near future. Touching upon different dimensions, such as technology and business as well as legal implications, the meetup provided a forum for experts as much as interested LSE alumni to discuss the disruptive power of autonomous cars.
After a brief introduction by Frank Wolter and Benno Bock from InnoZ, the representative of Berlin Partner, ICT Coordinator Manuel Friedrich, briefly explained the support network for the capital’s innovation clusters, and initiatives to support the exchange among key players and startups, and connecting research and business. The introductions were followed by a keynote by Tinosch Ganjineh, AutoNOMOS GmbH, and the panel discussion on the topic ‘How are autonomous cars and the internet of things affecting future mobility’.
Moderated by LSE Enterprise Germany’s Christian Thiel, other participants included Gerd Leutner (CMS Hasche Sigle), and Aria Etemad (Volkswagen Group Research). Each presented their area of expertise or current research projects relating to the topic at hand, and then went on to discuss the potential and perils of autonomous vehicle technology.
While all panellists were adamant that autonomous vehicle technology offers the possibility of fundamentally changing transportation, the path towards this brave new mobility world is still unclear. It is a technology with the potential to enable social benefits: substantially affecting safety, congestion, energy use, and land use. Since it is usually a driver’s error that is responsible for a large proportion of crashes, more autonomous cars on the road will likely lead to fewer crashes. Other social benefits include increased mobility for those who are currently unable or unwilling to drive, such as the blind, disabled, or those too young or old to drive, resulting in increased independence, reduced social isolation and access to essential services.
Changing the face of the city, autonomous vehicle technology is disruptive. Traditional concepts and structures are likely to be undermined by the technology. Sharing programmes may decrease the rate of car ownership, resulting in a change in land use, as fewer parking spaces are needed. Industries dedicated to the manufacturing, repairing and insuring of cars and drivers will without any doubt be considerably impacted. But more research is needed to determine what sort of public and private costs the technology will cause on the large scale in the future.
Technical challenges remain – the combination of sensors, lidar (light detection and ranging), radar, and cameras combined with localisation systems will need to progress, as currently the systems can be inaccurate in certain conditions. Also, the role of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication in enabling autonomous vehicle operation remains unclear.
The speed of this progress is hard to estimate – while some technological aspects might evolve in as much as three years, others could need another fifteen to twenty years.
T
he Internet of Things will play a crucial role in the development: cloud-based resources and the constant exchange of data within the system are fundamental to making the autonomous driving experience possible. But here, too, issues remain – especially in respect to data security, data ownership and privacy.
But what are the biggest hurdles: are they of a technological or legal nature? And how ready are we as consumers? Without doubt, the biggest potential of the autonomous car to change the future of mobility will be in megacities. Yet, to experience the greatest benefits of the technology, human drivers will need to be able to engage in other tasks while the vehicle is driving autonomously and the majority of the cars on the streets need to be autonomous. It was stressed by the experts that while there are certainly many technological obstacles to overcome, it will also be a policy challenge to accommodate the advances in mobility and the social impact of the new technology.
The panel ended with an extensive Q&A session, and after closing remarks by Boris Peltonen (Israel Trade Centre), the meetup concluded with networking opportunities over drinks and the first barbeque of the year.
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