Thought Leadership

Testing and perfecting driverless vehicle technology

By ToniB

The auto industry is fully invested in developing autonomous vehicles. Long-standing OEMs and brand new startups alike are developing and testing these cars to ensure their safety before they hit the road en masse.



But when will autonomous vehicles actually become one of the dominant transportation methods you see on the road?

You’ll see different projections because driverless vehicle technology still has a ways to go. It has to get to a point where it can sense, think and act just as well as humans, and then become better than humans.

Even so, there’s consensus that this technology is the way of the future for safer roads. Estimates show that 1.25 million people are killed each year around the world in car accidents, and 90 to 95 percent of accidents are the result of driver error.

Autonomous vehicles are a trend that must happen.

So begins the first video in our series on autonomous vehicles and the technology that will eventually allow them to be mass produced. Recorded during a recent conversation I had with Dave Lauzun, vice president of automotive and transportation at Siemens PLM Software, these videos highlight some of the major trends with autonomous vehicles. Dave and I discussed what’s happening with the driverless technology in vehicles, and how autonomous vehicles will change infrastructure, vehicle production and testing and validation.



In this video, Dave highlights how autonomous vehicles are the biggest revolution in the automotive industry in a century, the different estimates of when autonomous cars will be mass produced, how driverless vehicle technology must function and the skills today’s and tomorrow’s engineers will need to be successful in an autonomous automotive world.

Stay tuned for three additional videos from the conversation I had with Dave about autonomous vehicles, where we discuss autonomous vehicles and infrastructure, vehicle production, and testing and validation.

Tell us: When do you think autonomous cars will go into mass production? 

About the author
Toni Boger
is the editor-in-chief of Digital Transformations, the Thought Leadership blog for Siemens PLM Software. As the content strategist for the Siemens PLM Thought Leadership program, she oversees the content creation, management, publication and promotion for all content in the program. She graduated from Saginaw Valley State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication and English. Prior to joining Siemens, Toni worked as an associate site editor for TechTarget, a technology media company.

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This article first appeared on the Siemens Digital Industries Software blog at https://blogs.sw.siemens.com/thought-leadership/2018/07/09/testing-and-perfecting-driverless-vehicle-technology/