Democratised technology has catalysed autonomous driving efforts

Autonomous driving has progressed rapidly in recent years, moving from small-scale robotics challenges to reshaping some of the world’s biggest companies’ long-term strategies. Programmes that might once have been considered pet projects have since attracted multi-billion-dollar investments, and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have now become a standard fit for many mass market vehicles.

The prospects for deployment vary by sector, but the industry is well and truly on its way to producing autonomous vehicles (AVs) at scale. James Hodgson, Principal Analyst, Smart Mobility & Automotive at ABI Research, gives his take on the current state of play and how such progress has been achieved in a relatively short period.

How would you describe the evolution of the autonomous driving space?

Various factors have taken something that seemed only technically possible 15, 20 years ago, to something that you could feasibly see deployed with business models that make sense.

The cost structure has