The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently issued a 155-page "final rule" that will no longer require self-driving car manufacturers to equip fully autonomous vehicles with manual driving control systems.
In simple terms, after the implementation of this regulation, the production of vehicles with automatic driving can be equipped with manual control mechanisms such as steering wheels, throttles, and brakes, and even without the driver's seat, all seats on the car will become passenger seats.
The new regulations conform to the wishes of most self-driving companies and clear the legal barriers to the mass production of fully driverless cars. Who is most likely to take the lead in mass production of steering-wheelless, completely driverless cars has also become the focus of consumer attention.
Tesla is clearly a big hit, and at the 2019 Autonomy Day event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the company will deliver a car without a steering wheel in the next two years. Although the model did not debut as scheduled, in September 2021, Tesla again broke the news that it will release a car without a steering wheel in 2023. "Once regulators agree that we don't have a steering wheel, we take it." Musk has promised that "the probability of the steering wheel being taken away is 100 percent." ”
However, from release to mass production, it will take a long time, and there are still variables whether Tesla can become the first.
Another company that cannot be ignored and even plays an important role in promoting the rule, General Motors, is also a strong contender. GM and its self-driving arm Cruise have repeatedly made requests to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to allow it to build and deploy a self-driving car called Cruise Origin that doesn't require manual control.
It is understood that GM is considered to be one of the leaders of self-driving cars, Cruise Origin is an autonomous vehicle released on the evening of January 21, 2020, the biggest feature of this model is that there is no steering wheel and brake pedals. But Cruise has not mass-produced Origin because it has not yet been approved for such a design to be driven on public roads. Now that the new regulations have been issued, GM has finally begun to promote the project.
There is also Google's Waymo, in 2016 Waymo released the world's first fully driverless car, in December 2021, Waymo announced a cooperation with Geely Holding Group, Geely Kr will design a Robotaxi model for Waymo, the new model is designed and developed by the Krypton European Innovation Center, using the Extreme Kr intelligent travel platform SEA-M. As can be seen from the videos and photos released by Waymo and Geely, the model is passenger-centric, flat floor, B-pillar-free design, fully adjustable to lie flat seat design, and more importantly, the car is also not configured with a steering wheel and brake pedals designed by human drivers.
Google's cutting-edge technology, China's manufacturing speed and level, the combination of the two, is also very likely to spawn a dark horse.
According to 2021 media reports, Apple is clearly going to build a completely driverless car without a steering wheel, which is planned to be launched within four years, that is, apple cars can be seen in 2025 at the latest.
Cancel the steering wheel, and when driverlessness takes a historic step, you think, Tesla, General Motors, Google, Apple, including some companies that are working hard for driverless driving, who are most likely to take the lead in mass production of cars without steering wheels.
Upstream journalist Sang Jian