Driverless Cars Reading Passage
Driverless Cars Reading Passage
Paragraph A
The automotive industry is very used to adapting to automating manufacturing. Since the 1970s, the implementation of robotic car manufacturing has brought significant cost savings and improvements in the reliability and flexibility of mass production of vehicles. There is a new challenge to vehicle production on the horizon again and it comes from automation. But, this time it has nothing to do with the process of manufacturing, but with the vehicles themselves.
Paragraph B
Vehicle automation research is not new. For more than 50 years, vehicles with limited self-driving capabilities have been around, which contributed significantly towards driver assistance systems. Progress in this field has quickly gathered pace since Google announced that it had been trialling self-driving cars on the streets of California in 2010.
Paragraph C
Technology is advancing so fast for many reasons. The biggest reason is safety. UK’s Transport Research Laboratory’s Research has shown that more than 90% of road collisions occur due to human error, and it is the biggest cause of road accidents. Automating driving may help to reduce the occurrence of this.
Paragraph D
Another reason is to reduce the time people use to drive and make use of it for other purposes. It may be possible to socialise, be productive or relax if the vehicle can do some or all of the driving, while automation systems have all the responsibility for your safety. Those who are old or disabled may be able to travel alone if the vehicle can drive.
Paragraph E
We can look at the wider implications for transport and society apart from these direct benefits, and how manufacturing processes might need to change as a result. At present, the average car spends its life parked for more than 90% of its life. Initiatives for car-sharing become more possible through automation, especially in cities with more demand for vehicles. Mobility demand can be met by far fewer vehicles if a significant proportion of the population chooses to use shared automated vehicles.
Paragraph F
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology investigated automated mobility in Singapore and found that less than 30% of the vehicles used presently would be needed if automated car-sharing could be fully implemented. In that case, it can mean that we may need to produce far fewer vehicles to meet the demand. The number of trips being taken may increase because empty vehicles would have to be moved from one customer to the next.
Paragraph G
Modelling work at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute indicates that automated vehicles might reduce ownership of vehicles by 43%, but as a result the average annual mileage of vehicles doubles. As a result, the vehicles would be used more frequently and will require replacement sooner. Due to this fast turnover the vehicle production may not necessarily decrease.
Paragraph H
Automation may bring some other modifications in the manufacture of vehicles. If we move to a model where consumers don't own any vehicles but will get access to different vehicles through a mobility provider, drivers will choose to select the vehicle that best suits their needs for a particular journey, rather than compromising on all their requirements.
Paragraph I
Since most of the seats in most cars are unoccupied most of the time, it can increase the development of smaller and efficient vehicles that match the needs of individuals. For going on exceptional journeys like a family trip or to help children move to a university, specialised vehicles may be made available.
Paragraph J
We should overcome many obstacles before delivering automated vehicles to our roads. These include the technical difficulties in making sure that the vehicle is reliable in traffic, different climates, and multiple road situations it might experience; the regulatory challenges in understanding how liability and enforcement might need to change when drivers are not needed; and the societal changes that are to be brought in communities to accept and trust automated vehicles as being a valuable part of the mobility landscape.
Paragraph K
There is no doubt that many challenges need to be taken care of, but through targeted and robust research, these problems can be solved in the next 10 years. In the coming years, mobility will change in many ways and will be associated with so many other technological developments, such as telepresence and virtual reality, which makes proper predictions difficult. However, one thing is clear: change is for sure, and the flexibility to respond to this will be essential for those involved in manufacturing the vehicles that will implement future mobility.
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