In October 1986, when Bosch and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler began working on a large-scale\u00a0autonomous car project, the technology seemed light-years away from merging into the mainstream. There were ups and downs, but the three decades of hard and persistent work are about to pay off. The two German companies have announced the joint development of a hardware and software platform for self-driving cars that will reach production in the early 2020s.<\/p>\n
\u201cAutonomous driving is one of the biggest challenges ever in the car industry. Hardly any company in the world can meet this challenge on its own,\u201d said Dr. Michael Fausten, Bosch\u2019s head of urban autonomous driving, during a conference call.<\/p>\n
His statement explains why the two partners decided to use Nvidia\u2019s Drive Pegasus artificial intelligence (A.I.) technology to process the algorithms they\u2019re jointly developing. Announced at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show,\u00a0Drive Pegasus is built on two\u00a0Xavier processors<\/a>\u00a0and a pair of next-generation GPUs. It handles 320 trillion operations per second; in simpler terms, it delivers the performance of a trunk full of PCs in a device no bigger than a license plate.<\/p>\n The project calls for the launch of a\u00a0level 4<\/a>\u00a0or 5 car, meaning one that can drive itself in a variety of conditions without requiring human intervention. Fausten explained it will be able to operate in autonomous-only mode on sunny days or in inclement weather, in broad daylight or at night, and on several different types of roads. Prototypes will participate in an extensive pilot program before Daimler and Bosch release the technology to the general public.<\/p>\n Details about the program still need to be finalized, so what we know about it is murky at best \u2014 we can\u2019t even tell you its name yet. It will start in the second half of 2019 in a major city located, appropriately, in California\u2019s Silicon Valley area. The cars that will participate in the pilot program will be purpose-designed vehicles developed and built by Mercedes, and they\u2019ll initially operate through a ridesharing service available only on select routes. More routes will be added as the program grows, but it\u2019s too early to tell how many cars will hit the streets.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are working as fast as we can but also as thoroughly as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Once the automotive and tech industries\u2019 darling, autonomous technology has been vilified after a Volvo XC90-based prototype built and operated by Uber\u00a0struck and killed<\/a>\u00a0a 49-year old woman named Elaine Herzberg as she crossed a street in Arizona. Critics collectively raised their tone when the circumstances of the crash became clearer; the safety driver was\u00a0watching Hulu<\/a>\u00a0before the impact, according to investigators, and the prototype\u2019s software\u00a0may have chosen<\/a>\u00a0to ignore the pedestrian. The snafu increased the pressure regulators put on companies testing autonomous cars and boosted the public\u2019s skepticism about so-called robot cars.<\/p>\n Daimler and Bosch firmly believe they\u2019ll manage to avoid finding themselves entrenched in a similar situation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not in the position to comment on recent accidents,\u201d Dr. Uwe Keller, Daimler\u2019s head of autonomous driving, told Digital Trends. \u201cI would rather focus on what we are doing on our side to avoid anything happening to our program. We are having a very careful design process where we evaluate all use cases and figure out what can happen on the roads. When we test, we drive on public roads with people on board who are trained and well certified. From our side, we think we do our best to make driving safe in the testing and prototyping phase.\u201d<\/p>\n Fausten echoed his colleague\u2019s comments. \u201cWe are working as fast as we can but also as thoroughly as we can,\u201d he told us.<\/p>\n While both parties declined to discuss the financial terms of the project, Fausten called it \u201cone of the biggest enterprises in innovation we have undertook in the past.\u201d He added that\u2019s because the technology is \u201chigh-level, cutting-edge, and complex.\u201d Cost and complexity explain why Daimler and Bosch \u2014 two companies with deeply-rooted ties \u2014 joined forces on the project. They\u2019re not currently considering adding other companies like\u00a0Google\u2019s Waymo<\/a>to the alliance, however.<\/p>\n Companies wishing to bring autonomous technology to the market must butcher their way through jungles of red tape. Just ask Audi: The firm\u00a0gave up<\/a>trying to offer Traffic Jam Pilot, the innovative level 3 system it designed for the\u00a0new A8<\/a>, in the United States because it couldn\u2019t get it approved by federal regulators. Bosch and Daimler will need to jump hurdles, too, but they\u2019re betting some will fall in the coming years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need the right regulatory environment to really make these vehicles drive on public roads in a legal way. There are still lots of activities to do in the United States, as well as in Europe, but we are seeing very good progress,\u201d Fausten concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In October 1986, when Bosch and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler began working on a large-scale\u00a0autonomous car project, the technology seemed light-years away from merging into the mainstream. There were ups and downs, but the three decades of hard and persistent work are about to pay off. The two German companies have announced the joint development <\/p>\nAUTONOMOUS DRIVING, RAIN OR SHINE<\/h3>\n
A HUGE UNDERTAKING<\/h3>\n