Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are still a novelty in many areas, but some experts predict they’ll be everywhere within 15 years. The Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) technology that allows these cars to drive themselves is complex and requires many sensors. If AVs are going to take over the roads, auto glass technicians should prepare now for increasingly complex recalibrations.
McKinsey, a firm that provides technological insights and business consulting, published a video interview with its automotive and technology experts. They say autonomous vehicle (AV) technology will become the new normal by 2040.
“I think everybody will expect that the new cars that you buy have level-four autonomous capability,” Philipp Kampshoff, one of the firm’s senior automotive and future mobility experts, says in the video. “AV technology is going to be like the shower in your hotel room: You just expect it.”
Autonomous vehicles are already being used as taxis in several U.S. cities.
Like today’s ADAS technology, AV technology in 2040 will likely still require sensors, according to McKinsey experts. That means most, if not all, vehicles would require recalibration. In fact, since most AVs have more sensors than standard ADAS-equipped vehicles, recalibration may become both more important and more complex.
The vehicles’ ADAS would likely incorporate more Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make driving decisions. McKinsey AI expert Ali Rizvi explains that it would make a smoother driving experience than most current ADAS information processing.
“With the advent of gen AI and AI models, you’re no longer thinking about a car that needs to read the sensors to understand the situation of what’s on the road and use predetermined rules to take the next step,” he says.
Instead, the sensors would operate more like a human driver’s eyes, taking in the “whole picture” rather than individual traffic elements. AI would act like a brain and make an instinctual driving decision.
For safety’s sake, Kampshoff says that AV technology’s ability to drive “correctly” needs to be refined before AVs become widespread.
“You can get an AV to behave correctly 95 percent of the time relatively quickly,” he says. “But that’s not good enough. The AV has to be much better than a human driver. And a human driver behaves correctly in [over 99%] of the cases.”
Still, Kampshoff and the other experts agree that they have no safety concerns riding in AVs themselves. In fact, expert Emily Shao trusts it so much that she plans to use AV technology with her kids.
“By 2040, my kids will be in their late teens, early 20s,” she says. “They probably won’t have driver’s licenses, because they just want to use AVs to get back and forth.”
Shao adds that AVs could take her kids to school or other activities while she and her husband worked. They’d also help transport older people or others who cannot drive themselves.
Mingyu Guan, another of the firm’s automotive experts, believes all cars will be AVs within 10-15 years and no one will need a driver’s license.
“This will free up our time to do something else,” he says. “The vehicles will make sure that we are safely moving from point A to point B without worrying about anything on the road, so we can focus on more productive stuff that, as human beings, we can uniquely contribute.”
