Self-Driving Cars Are Coming to Serve You

Self-Driving Cars Are Coming to Serve You

Auto companies are planning to launch autonomous vehicles into the service industry before selling them to consumers

Based on some of the announcements and demonstrations we've seen at CES 2018, the first self-driving car most consumers encounter may be delivering a pizza.

But that's not the only job autonomous car developers are exploring for future fleets. Think self-driving delivery pods for companies like Amazon and robo-taxis that will take you to your destination with minimal to no human intervention.

It may be several years or even decades before computers take over the operation of your own personal vehicle, but auto executives are predicting some worker vehicles will be driving on their own in some cities in the next year or two.

Companies from Ford to Toyota, from Domino’s to Pizza Hut, are envisioning how consumers will interact with self-driving technology, and they see it starting in the service sector.

Ford’s new CEO, Jim Hackett, told a CES audience that Ford hopes to be at the center of a new urban economy.

According to Hackett, Ford is looking to deliver the first system—called the Transportation Mobility Cloud—that will connect vehicles with third-party service providers, mobile applications, and even transit systems.

The first pilot city for the automaker’s system will be announced in a few months, Jim Farley, Ford’s executive vice president of global markets, said in an interview. But according to Farley, the car company has already learned some early lessons from a partnership with Domino’s Pizza using autonomous delivery vehicles with human minders in the cars.

It turns out people don’t interact with automated vehicles as the company expected they would. For instance, Ford found that people picking up their pizzas like to talk to the person in the car, rather than just taking the pizza. The human interaction, the automaker found, still matters.

Read more : https://www.consumerreports.org/cars-driving/ces-2018-automated-cars-aptiv-lyft-zenuity-toyota/