Cutting Through the Hype

I welcome the recent media coverage suggesting that the hype has gone out of autonomous vehicles because Aptiv’s approach to self-driving technology has never been about hype. It has always been about developing technology that gets the safest cars on the road.  

As exciting as the prospect of a car that drives itself is, I have always talked about Aptiv’s automated driving pursuits as two separate introductions to the consumer market. The first will be as robotaxis, driven in limited, well-defined, urban, geo-fenced areas. Aptiv’s recent announcement of a joint venture with Hyundai Motor Group will begin testing fully driverless systems in 2020 and have a production-ready autonomous driving platform available for robotaxi providers, fleet operators, and automotive manufacturers in 2022.  

A second consumer application for self-driving cars will be for individual personal ownership, able to drive anywhere, in any condition. I see this as an evolutionary approach, where the technology scales from active safety systems today to greater and greater levels of automation. Deployments for these Level 3 advanced active safety technologies are expected in the 2023 & 2024 timeframe. We expect consumer Level 4 vehicles for personal ownership closer to the 2030 timeframe, and even then only in limited quantities. 

Our continued 50/50 ownership in the Aptiv-Hyundai joint venture not only brings us closer to enabling tomorrow’s self-driving vehicles, it also helps us to provide better Active Safety solutions today for our existing OEM customers. Since autonomous vehicle Level 4 technology is on a continuum with Level 2/3 Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), insights from the JV can help enhance Aptiv’s ADAS solutions.

So while we are working towards a driverless future, Aptiv will make driving safer for everyone along the way. By doing so, we will realize our mission of a safer, greener and more connected world.