This topic has been in my head for the several years now. The main reason is that both design and cars were my passion from the childhood. Driving came later - when I became 18 (actually more like 20, when I finally got the driving license). Since then - I’ve been obsessed with driving.
Many miles later - we’ve got into an era, which I would call “assisted driving”. There are many implementations across the manufacturers that for the last couple of years became very close to standard. I got a chance to experience it for the first time in my own Mercedes GLE this year - and have been pretty impressed. I will definitely go deeper into the details and driver-focused analysis in the upcoming blogposts.
And it’s not a science-fiction anymore to say that “fully autonomous driving” (FAD) is very close to reality. Yes, Tesla has been struggling to get a stable release for the last several months, however it’s pretty obvious they are on the right track. How far the FAD will go in the first iteration is still questionable. I assume it will require at least a couple more years to properly solidify the approach. Even though Tesla is doubling down on the Vision (camera-based) approach, for a proper safety I would assume additional Lidars will be definitely needed.
Images taken from: https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/exhibitions/ces/vehicles/vision-avtr/