In the past decade, self-driving vehicles have transformed from a ‘maybe’ to a reality. Today, we already see various forms of autonomous mobility solutions being adopted in multiple ways. For instance, autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) are used on the shop floors of the factories.
Recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, the government started using a four-legged autonomous vehicle to ensure citizens are following distancing norms. There are also several instances of autonomous cars and robo-taxis being tested and used around the world in controlled environments.
While it might take some time for a completely autonomous car to come on Indian roads, autonomous vehicles are, without a doubt, the future of mobility. This future is being widely welcomed by the end consumer too.
As per the Continental Mobility Report released in 2018, 51 percentage of the people trust autonomous driving could prevent serious accidents, and 54 percent believe it will help during stressful or monotonous situations. More than 50 percent of the total respondents felt optimistic about riding through the city in a robo-taxi. In China, this number was as high as 79 percent.
Autonomous vehicles and lockdown
COVID-19 has had an everlasting impact on both industries and the psyche of people across the globe. It created questions in issues that were previously considered taken for granted - like the safety quotient of the packages being delivered to our doorstep, the health of the delivery people, etc.
Moreover, there were various questions about the logistics of essential
services and goods. All this can be resolved by bringing autonomous vehicles in
the picture.
Autonomous Robo-taxis, for instance, Continental’s CubE (Continental Urban Mobility Experience), can carry one or multiple delivery robots and deploy them to handle the last-mile delivery of the goods and parcel. The seamless integration of a driverless vehicle – in this case, CUbE as a carrier – and a delivery robot present a more effective and efficient distribution of goods.
Traversing through the Infected Areas: Autonomous driving will also prove to be crucial by providing necessary supplies to corona warriors and food to the public, especially in the COVID-19 hotspots areas. They will be instrumental in disinfecting hospitals. In the future, if the government decides on street-level, autonomous vehicles will prove to be helpful in disinfection at regular intervals.
The robo-taxis, as mentioned earlier, can be easily transformed into autonomous ambulances to traverse through infected areas and safely transport the patients and medical supplies.
Driverless Trucks and Supply Chains: Disrupted supply chain was a key issue during the lockdown in India. Closed state borders made it difficult for goods to be transported to local stores. This further creates a shortage of supplies and creates a panic-like situation among the buyers.
Driverless trucks can also play a crucial role in getting the supply materials to the manufacturing facilities to ensure the smooth production of essential goods.
They will prove to be beneficial if another lockdown-like situation occurs in the future.
Self-Driving Taxi: Today, if you don’t have a personal vehicle, you cannot commute during the lockdown. All shared mobility solutions do not fit the social-distancing paradigm. Under these conditions, self-driving cars or taxis can help people from taking them from point A to point B with ease. This can be aided with auto-sanitization of the vehicle after each ride to ensure a safe commute.
About the
author:
Alexander
Klotz is the Head of Technical Center India at Continental Automotive
Comments