Gee, color me surprised. Not.

… considering WHO said it, this time.

I am (to put it mildly) very skeptical about self driving cars as advertised today. Today, I’m happy because I found someone who confirms my opinion, and is not your average Luddite. Far from that. The person who “recently admitted that Level 5 autonomy might actually never happen” is the CEO of Volkswagen’s autonomous driving division

“Level 5 autonomy” is, as explained in this other comment to that statement, means “full computer control, with zero limitations”, of a car that might (should) not even have steering wheel and pedals anymore.

Maybe the problem is the LANGUAGE

Part of the reason (possibly a big one) of why society as a whole, and more than a few investors, have been fooled by self driving cars so far may be the way those “autonomy levels” are defined. This point is discussed in detail here, and its conclusion are that:

• The root of all confusion is automation levels defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), which have become the global standard for defining self-driving
• [Because] those levels, “do not reduce confusion, they increase it”, and this is why “no car maker wants to define their cars by SAE levels”

For example, SAE Level 3 would mean “Self-driving, but with a human available to take over if needed.” But, says the article, “How can a Level 3 car be self-driving if a human must be available to take over if needed?” Which is, by the way, exactly the point I made at least one year ago: regardless of price, what is the point of cars that drive themselves… But only if you drive them too???

There is only one solution…

“and that’s to toss the SAE language and start from scratch”. Period.

Image source: “Do Self-Driving Cars SUCK?"