Self-driving cars: When can we expect them?

We are just on the cusp of a revolution in transportation with the introduction of the self-driving cars by the automobile industry. The next expected question is: When are they going to be available on the market?

Ford Motor Company plans to offer a fully automated driverless vehicle for commercial ride-sharing in 2021, announced Mark Fields, President and CEO, during the media preview of the 2016 New York International Auto Show in Manhattan, NY, in March 23, 2016. Fields expects that it will take several years longer until Ford will sell autonomous vehicles to the public. (Source: Reuters, August 16, 2016)

General Motor's head of foresight and trends Richard Holman said at a conference in Detroit that most industry participants now think that self-driving cars will be on the road by 2020 or sooner. (Source: Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2016)

Volkswagen's appointed head of Digitalization Strategy, Johann Jungwirth, expects the first self-driving cars to appear on the market by 2019. He did not claim that these would be Volkswagen models. (Source: Focus, April 23, 2016)

BMW CEO, Harald Krueger, said, at their annual shareholder meeting, that BMW will launch a self-driving electric vehicle, the BMW iNext, in 2021.(Source: Elektrek, May 12, 2016)

Toyota plans to bring the first models capable of autonomous highway driving to the market by 2020. (Source: Wired.com, August 10, 2015)

Tesla's founder, Elon Musk, expects first fully autonomous Tesla by 2018, but notes that regulatory approval may take 1 to 3 more years thereafter. (Source: Borsen Interview on YouTube, timeline: 8:06–8:29, recorded on September 23, 2015)

Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, expects Uber's fleet to be driverless by 2030. The service will then be so inexpensive and ubiquitous that car ownership will be obsolete. (Source: Mobility Lab, August 18, 2015)

These are just some of the automobile industry players that have declared to have autonomous cars on their pipeline for the next 4–5 years. Nissan, Audi, Jaguar, Land Rover, Delphi, Daimler, Google, MobilEye, and NuTonomy — all of them announced in the past months or years that automated driving is at the core of its long-term strategy.

In addition to these forecasts, expert members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) have determined that driverless vehicles will be the most viable form of intelligent transportation. They estimate that up to 75% of all vehicles will be autonomous by 2040.

From our CPO, JP Galvao in collaboration with Valeria Haddad.