The first autonomous cars, with “hands-free” driving, are finally marketed in September 2023. But they are very far from the expected progress in terms of comfort.
After several false starts, the first autonomous cars arrive on the market in September. They have been delivered for a few weeks in Germany and will be delivered to France and the United States in November or December. These “hands-free” cars are “level 3” autonomous vehicles. There is no longer any need to keep your hands on the wheel or pay attention to the road. You activate the system and you can read the newspaper, watch a film or your phone, the car drives itself.
Drive at 60 km/h maximum, in broad daylight
It’s a dream, but on the first models marketed, at Mercedes for example, the system is ultra-restricted. It is impossible to activate it on a road where you may encounter pedestrians or cyclists; you can only do so on expressways with a central reservation. And again, you will have to drive below 60 km/h.
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Ultimately the only use cases concern traffic jams, motorways or major national roads. And again, only during the day, when the weather is nice. The system automatically deactivates if it is dark, raining, or snowing. This isn’t really the breakthrough we expected in terms of comfort.
The problem of manufacturer liability
These restrictions do not fall under the law, since in Europe such cars are allowed to drive in autonomous mode up to 130 km/h. If it were possible to speed up to that point, only in this case, it would already be good. This would allow you to be driven and do other things for a good part of the journey. But for the moment, no vehicle has yet been approved at this speed, probably for both technical and legal reasons. In the event of an accident with a car in autonomous mode, it is the manufacturer who is responsible. Naturally, they prefer to limit risks.
With the pseudo-autonomous modes of many current level 2 vehicles, you can drive at 130 km/h and let the car take care of the steering and accelerator. You have to keep your hands on the wheel and if there is an accident, in any case, it is the driver who is responsible.
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The truly autonomous car still seems as distant as ever. We were told about a revolution, with models without steering wheels for 2020, then 2025. Now, we can no longer imagine anything before 2030. If we realized that it was technically much more complicated than we imagined, the process also blocks from a legal point of view, whether criminal liability must be assumed in the event of an accident. It is therefore not tomorrow that we will be able to take a nap while driving.