Smart Vehicles And Internet of Things, What Changes It Will Bring To Our Lives?

Self-driving cars are smart, and it takes correspondingly smart people and technology to build them. With so many benefits to be reaped from such innovation, the ICT industry is investing in its own future by supplying technology required by the largest automakers worldwide and rising consumer trends, wishing to bring about the digital transformation of driving.

But the auto and ICT industries’ collaborative acceleration of smart car development does not come without its fair share of challenges. Digitised smart car technology is still in its primal stages; a feat of mechanical and electronic engineering that remains rudimentary. The stakes for smart car development are thus not only high because the outcome could be so overwhelming, but also because it is so uncertain. The road to digital transformation in the already high-tech realm of auto engineering is one which has yet to be drawn and driven, according to FAW (China’s first automotive firm to conduct R&D on smart cars).

What are smart vehicles?

What makes a smart car? The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in the United States offers tiered definitions, identifying different levels of automobile intelligence. The majority of car manufacturers aim to meet the requirements of SAE’s Level 3: cars able to control speed and steering programmatically and rely on the human driver to take over in dynamic situations, such as when bad weather interferes with the car’s sensors. In addition to real-time monitoring and braking capabilities, cars will require Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, cloud computing and other ICT technologies if they are to reach this level.

Of course, autonomy is not the only target; the integration of smart hardware and software has to meet safety standards as well. Deaths caused by traffic incidents in the US average about 20,000 a year – a steady figure which shows no sign of decreasing (omitting 2020 figures, when the pandemic drastically reduced road traffic altogether). Appropriately, smart cars are being developed with collision-avoidance capabilities, which may solve – or least alleviate – the problem of road traffic mortality, according to the US Department of Transportation. The American government is thus encouraging high-tech firms such as Google to apply their technology to smart car development, hoping to position the US as a leader in the smart car industry – the EU and Japan being the chief rivals.

The digitisation of smart cars can be split into three main areas: smart manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Smart manufacturing

Leading automakers worldwide describe traditional car manufacturing as ‘serial’: ‘starting with product planning and engineering design, then [on] to experimentation and trial production, and from full-scale production to marketing and post-sales services.’ The advent of cloud capabilities from innovative ICT infrastructures disrupts this production line, using virtual platforms to push it into many parallel processes such as digital design and service platforms. This considerably improves production costs and efficiency and reduces the number of physical tests needed for a car to meet modern crash-safety standards thanks to cloud-based virtual collision technologies – the most important of which are currently 5G and V2X. In fact, Japan is positioning itself as a world leader in automated driving/Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) standards.

AI

Smart cars rely on AI in relation to three specific domains: sensor fusion, route planning, and the use of AI and Big Data for multiple levels of data classification and delivery of results. Smart cars are projected to use on-board AI capabilities in the immediate future, with further support provided by cloud-based AI services. But as cloud and ICT technologies improve and innovate, cloud-based AI support is expected to become the primary director of smart cars, allowing them to perform functions such as determining the speed and direction at which other cars and people are moving, or indeed whether the objects it senses are people 0r cars (or even a barrier).

IoT

By endowing cars with more sensors, processors and software, passenger vehicles will become integrated carriers of digital transformation. In other words, smart car ambition is directly informed by IoT, which will not only permit cars to handle a wider range of scenarios, but will usher the automobile companies into a new – and unprecedentedly vast – realm of work. Indeed, companies which have traditionally belonged to the manufacturing industry are converting to be more service-oriented.

In order to fully investigate IoT’s capabilities in relation to the development of smart cars, we need to understand what exactly is IoT.

What is IoT?

“The internet of things (IoT) is a catch-all term for the growing number of electronics that aren’t traditional computing devices, but are connected to the internet to send data, receive instructions or both,” explains Josh Fruhlinger. These devices encompass a large spectrum, from gadgets like Alexa to internet-enabled sensors in farms and factories. By bringing the power of the internet, data processing and analytics to the real world of material objects, IoT blurs the boundaries between the digital and the physical. When a modern washing machine can be operated from a smartphone using an internet app, the person using it is directly engaging with the global information network; the very act of doing laundry is now part of an interconnected digital system.

In addition, the data-gathering capabilities of IoT is hugely beneficial to industry settings, where the data compiled by millions – if not billions – of embedded internet-enabled sensors serve as a reading key for companies wishing to assess ‘the safety of their operations’, ‘track assets’, ’reduce manual processes’, or even learn more about ‘people’s preferences and behaviour’ (Fruhlinger). Through IoT, the internet can now accelerate the processes of physical manufacturing and distribution in the same way it has been accelerating the research and dissemination of knowledge of decades.

Opportunities with smart vehicles and IoT

IoT is therefore crucial to the development of smart vehicles, collating the data needed to refine the technology required to meet safety and efficiency standards. Indeed, traditional car wiring is insufficient as it is built on mechanics, from the engine and transmission system to the integrated electrical components such as electronic engine control. Smart cars require a new core platform, entirely independent of the traditional engine, transmission, braking, and steering systems – one that includes sensors and software intelligence that connect with GPS mapping, sensor fusion, AI, and a growing range of supercomputing platforms. This IoT-based architecture, named ‘interconnection architecture’ by FAW, is to connect cars to the cloud and vice-versa.

This creates rich opportunities for smart vehicles, accelerating the development of functions such as health and attention monitoring. Indeed, most road traffic incidents occur because the driver has become distracted or tired; with smart technology, cars may be able to determine when a driver’s capacities are compromised and take over driving control accordingly.

Challenges with smart vehicles and IoT

The first challenge with smart vehicles and IoT is an ethical one: sharing so much personal data could be met with intrusion of privacy accusations. Fortunately, as the world becomes increasingly digitised, cybersecurity standards are correspondingly reinforced; smart car manufacturers would do well to work closely with digital security consultants.

The second challenge concerns engineering: how does one build the technology mentioned in section IV? A health and attention monitor, for instance, cannot exist without Big Data analytics interpreting information about roadways, the environment, and expanding interactions. Another crucial core technology is dynamic mapping: traditional navigation systems are based on fixed maps, so how does one transcend these limits and construct new technologies to generate real-time maps that are dynamic and responsive to current conditions?

Smart car manufacturing firms will not only need to hire competent mechanical engineers, but a highly skilled R&D team able to master new practices and operating regimes that include, among others, environmental assessment and AI-based decision-making control. New technologies of this kind have already started to emerge; FAW has already introduced the concept of AllwayEye, the core function of which is to allow each car to capture data related to its immediate environment and upload it to the cloud. With all similarly equipped cars in the vicinity uploading and downloading situational information with the cloud, any accident, collision or hazard would be taken into account by the car’s in-built navigation programs, informed by cloud communication. This would allow drivers to reprogram their route in real-time.

Transforming traditional R&D models and choosing the best core technologies in order to respond to an increasingly complex technological revolution is the main challenge currently faced by the auto industry – and it is one that no car firm can answer alone. An example of successful teamwork in the field is FAW’s collaboration with Huawei: a Chinese giant that benefits from a rich ecosystem of partners in many industries.

Case studies and solutions by Huawei

As a leader in the ICT sector and pioneer in emerging technologies such as 5G, cloud computing and, especially, IoT, Huawei is strengthening its position in the smart vehicle market by developing and implementing new solutions. Eric Xu, Chairman of Huawei, said recently at the Huawei Global Analyst Summit 2021:

“We will ramp up investment in components for intelligent vehicles, especially autonomous driving software. Vehicles are becoming more connected, intelligent, electric, and shared these days, and at the core of these trends is whether or not autonomous driving software can make truly autonomous cars a reality, and take us a step closer to entirely unmanned driving. With intense investment in autonomous driving software, our hope is to drive these trends forward as they facilitate the integration of the automotive and ICT industries, which in turn creates long-term strategic opportunities for Huawei. […] Once unmanned driving becomes a reality, we will see disruption in practically all adjacent sectors and trigger the most disruptive industry transformation the world will see in the next 10 years.”

Huawei wants to become the chief provider of new components for intelligent vehicles, fuelling its investments in autonomous driving software such as enhanced communication capabilities, cloud services and optical networks. Indeed, autonomous vehicles rely on computing and cloud services to identify red or green lights, or possible obstructions and hazards. Huawei’s ICT expertise means it is strategically positioned to deliver these technological innovations. Moreover, Huawei has an entire unit dedicated to the development of full-stack ICT systems for the B2B market: the Intelligent Automotive Solution Business Unit. This creation of a highly specialised team means Huawei has a solid grasp of user requirements and considerable experience in design for the B2C market. The company’s ‘platform + ecosystem’ strategy anchors its user interface within the wider tech and automotive networks.

Aside from Huawei, London also starts to use new innovative modern cars such as Arrival Van. It is currently tested for its own Automated Driving System (ADS) for its future owners for both business convenience and personal use. You can lease an electric van at for you to determine if they are good before switching to EV vehicles.

Huawei delivering innovative solutions?

Being the tech giant that it is, Huawei has, unsurprisingly, partnered with some of the biggest names in the auto industry; namely Audi on L4 autonomous driving, and BAIC Group on its Arcfox models, providing the latter with solutions and components. But how exactly has Huawei earned its reputation for delivering innovative solutions?

Huawei has branded its Intelligent Automotive Solutions ‘Huawei HI’, powered by HarmonyOS and launched in October last year. HI aims to drive the upgrade of technologies in the automotive industry and develop leading intelligent electric vehicles, by adopting a new joint development model in which the company works with automakers and leverages its technological advantages to jointly design and develop high-quality cars. These will use the automaker’s brand and display HI’s logo on the car body, identifying the vehicle as one that uses the full-stack HI Intelligent Automotive Solution.

“HI delivers full-stack intelligent automotive solutions. We have accumulated 30 years of technical experience and are integrating with the automotive industry, as well as pursuing cutting-edge technological development to outperform competitors,” commented Wang Jun, President of Huawei’s Intelligent Automotive Solution Business Unit (IAS BU). “We firmly believe that the new model will help us develop ideal, intelligent EVs. As a result, we will achieve brand extension and strengthen China’s automotive industry, which currently focuses on size.”

Architecture for computing and communications

HI’s acceleration of the development and production of smart vehicles relies on an all-new architecture for computing and communications, built on five pillars: intelligent driving, e-cockpit, intelligent electrification, connectivity, and an intelligent automobile cloud. This architecture – a Level 4 automated driving standard – is bolstered by powerful computing and operating systems for intelligent driving, e-cockpit and intelligent vehicle control; the operating systems in question are AOS, HOS, and VOS respectively. Powered by these computing and operating systems, vehicles can thus be defined by software, which Huawei believes will advance the development of new functions and ensure that customer experience is constantly improved.

Zooming in on the electrical appliances built into the smart vehicles by Huawei, it becomes apparent that the HI system is not only industry-leading in terms of sensors, central supercomputing, and algorithms, but also in terms of its self-improving capabilities: the use of AI allows the system to constantly learn and evolve on its own to become a smarter and better driver for consumers. One of the most advanced technologies developed by Huawei for smart vehicles is an intelligent electric system offering oil-cooling heat dissipation, providing better cooling effects and higher power outputs when at high speeds and thereby placing the car firmly within the 3-second club.

HI cockpit solution

Another notable innovation is the HI cockpit solution, which utilises Augmented reality head-up displays (AR-HUD) to turn a normal windshield into a 70-inch HD screen, allowing users to watch movies, play games, or attend video conferences while enjoying 7.1 surround sound. This same solution offers powerful visual recognition, semantic understanding, and advanced AI technologies; it can communicate in natural language and understand user gestures and expressions. A final innovative touch is the HI dual-motor electric driving system, which enables linked control and redundancy backup, preventing loss of power and ensuring driving safety. The system can also take advantage of AI and big data analysis to provide early warnings of battery exceptions, further improving driving safety.

Data safety and privacy concerns – a natural consequence of IoT – are also considered by Huawei, which has applied its experience in security to automobiles to fully protect users’ information.

Conclusion

Smart vehicles are the future of the industry as consumer trends continue to move towards it. With the technology still in its primal stages, it is a field as yet unspoiled, meaning the stakes for innovators and manufacturers are high. The target for firms looking to lead the digital revolution of the auto industry is twofold: safety and autonomy.

There are three key aspects to smart vehicles: smart manufacturing (for adaptability), AI (for efficiency), and IoT (for benchmarking progress). The latter is particularly important as we enter an unprecedentedly interconnected age, where the very act of changing gears on a highway sends data to the cloud and thereby informs decisions by tech companies and the algorithms on which they build their tech.

The use and application of IoT within the context of smart vehicle production is not without its challenges. The first is an ethical one concerning personal data and privacy. The second concerns engineering: how does one build the technology required for cars to be fully safe and autonomous? Our research demonstrates that a key solution is innovation not just on a technological level, but a structural level: traditional R&D models will have to be overhauled completely. Moreover, we expect to see an emergence in collaborative approach between different, highly specialised firms.

To illustrate this trend, we observed the solutional models developed by Huawei. Huawei edges ahead of the competition in each of the smart vehicle pillars (AI, smart manufacturing and IoT) with an innovative ‘platform + ecosystem’ development strategy, on which it is building an industry ecosystem based on partnerships between specialised tech and engineering firms. It is the success of these partnerships, and the network of information created through IoT, that will determine the course and progress of smart vehicle development.

In a world where everything is connected, smart vehicles will not only facilitate the experience of driving for consumers but allow physical and digital experiences to exist in symbiosis, using AI and IoT to drive us into a world of automated harmony.

How 5G & IoT technologies are driving the connected smart vehicle industry

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Below is some pertinent information on the current state of the connected car industry.

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Companies are pouring money into the Internet of Things (IoT), and one area of particular interest to investors is IoT connected cars. Business Insider Intelligence expects connected car shipments to rise from 33 million in 2017 to over 77 million by 2025.

Automakers have noticed a growing trend in connecting cars to the internet. Business Insider Intelligence

Automakers have correctly noticed a growing trend and a significant business opportunity for connecting their cars to the internet, since there are projected to be around 14 million semi- or fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the roads in the US by 2025.

But it won't just be in-car wi-fi that changes the automotive industry. Public transportation, such as buses and trains, will also transform thanks to the IoT. Subway cars in New York City, for example, will start to have chargers, built-in Wi-Fi, and security cameras, according to the city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Still, connected cars will be the bread and butter of the Internet of Things automotive industry. Below, we've compiled a history of the growth of the IoT in transportation and outlined how the "Internet of vehicles" will surge in the coming years.

Evolution of Vehicles

The first true technological leap forward for cars came in 1911, when automobile companies began installing electric starters into vehicles, according to Mashable. The cigarette lighter arrived in 1925, the radio in 1930, power steering in 1956, the 9-track player in 1965, the cassette deck in 1970, and air bags in 1984.

But the true driver conveniences started rolling in after that. Compact disc players started popping up in cars in 1985, followed by dashboard computer diagnostics in 1994 and GPS navigation systems in 1995. Then, in the 2000s, cars began featuring USB ports and Bluetooth connectivity, the latter of which was the true precursor to the connected cars of today.

Today's Connected Smart Cars

In the last several years, connected cars have exploded thanks to the IoT. Currently, automakers are connecting their vehicles in two ways: embedded and tethered. Embedded cars use a built-in antenna and chipset, while tethered connections use hardware to allow drivers to connect to their cars via their smartphones.

App integration is becoming commonplace in today's vehicles. Hollis Johnson

Furthermore, app integration is becoming commonplace in today's vehicles. Google Maps and other navigation tools, like Waze , have begun to replace built-in GPS systems. Apps such as GasBuddy show the driver where he or she can find the cheapest fuel in their area. And Music apps such as Spotify and Google Play remove the need for traditional or even satellite radio.

Electric vehicle maker Tesla plans to launch an autonomous ride-hailing service – Tesla Network. And, according to Business Insider Intelligence, if Tesla can successfully launch a ride-hailing service using AVs by the end of 2020, it would likely be the third or fourth entrant into the US AV ride-hailing space. Alphabet's Waymo launched the US's first AV ride-hailing service in December 2018 and General Motors' Cruise is in the works of launching its own ride-hailing service, Cruise Origin.

Speaking of self-driving cars, Business Insider Intelligence expects them to be the next wave of innovation in the IoT in transportation. And that change has already begun.

General Motors' Cruise Origin. Cruise

Step one was stop and go autopilot, which allows cars to drive themselves in traffic jams by analyzing the lane ahead of them and moving appropriately. Step two was the remote valet assistant, the ability to actually summon a car in a small space (such as a parking garage) through a smartphone, smartwatch, or key fob. Step three was highway autopilot with lane changing, which included blind spot technology to shift lanes.

Now, we're starting to get into the truly exciting stage. Step four is cars that require a driver behind the wheel, but provide an option for them to push a button to let the car drive itself. Step five will be fully autonomous vehicles — totally driverless vehicles that do not require a driver behind the wheel, or even a steering wheel at all.

The global AV market is expected to reach $556 billion by 2026, up from $54 billion in 2019. Additionally, Business Insider Intelligence predicts that the number of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in vehicles will jump from 7 million in 2015 to 122 million by 2025 due to the adoption of autonomous systems.

How IoT Will Make Smart Cars Even More Connected

Automakers are ramping up their connected car efforts for several reasons. Internet connectivity in vehicles allows car companies to release software updates in real time, which is extremely important during a recall.

BMW is a leader in the connected car industry. BMW

Second, automotive companies can use data from the car to analyze its performance and obtain valuable data on how drivers use their cars. Finally, more connectivity provides more ways for automakers to cross-sell their products and services to customers.

So which automotive companies are leading the pack in this connected car push? There is no clear winner, but several companies are setting the tone. BMW is the champion, according to a KPMG survey of 200 automotive executives. General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, and Tesla are also near the top of the list.

As far as tech companies, Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, and other tech heavyweights are all throwing their considerable muscle behind connected cars.

Alphabet

A Waymo self-driving vehicle is parked outside the Alphabet company's offices where its been testing autonomous vehicles in Chandler, Arizona Reuters

Alphabet's Waymo evolved into the leading self-driving tech venture in the US. According to Business Insider Intelligence, Waymo was recently valued at $105 billion and is expected to hold an 18% share of the AV market by 2030.

Apple

Apple's Project Titan has the goal of developing an autonomous electric vehicle and has gone through various iterations over the last few years. Additionally, the tech giant is using its operating system (OS) to enter the auto space. Apple's CarPlay is a software solution for bringing Apple's OS, iOS, into vehicles – and is now available in over 500 different vehicle models.

Amazon

Amazon is attempting to capture control of in-car experience with Alexa. Alan Diaz/AP Images

Amazon is attempting to capture control of in-car experience with Alexa – investing in firms that can help drive the voice assistant's in-car capabilities. Amazon has also invested in two of the most disruptive technologies in the transportation space: self-driving technology and electrification – the process of powering something via electricity that was previously powered by another source.

And all of this effort will not go unnoticed or unappreciated by consumers. A recent Google survey found that 30% of U.S. smartphone users get "anxious" without their smartphone on them, and 68% check their smartphones within 15 minutes after waking up in the morning. Connected cars allow people to stay connected more frequently and remove that anxiety while they're on the go.

And since the government is also cracking down on texting while driving, connected cars could solve the problem by letting drivers keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road even as they communicate with others.

The Future of the IoT in Transportation

Self-driving features and a digitized in-car experience soon won't be "special perks" for automakers — they'll be a necessity. Self-driving technology will be the biggest opportunity AI creates in the transportation space, presenting a $556 billion opportunity by 2026, and growing at a 39% CAGR from $54 billion in 2019.

Automakers are deploying multiple strategies to remain viable in the connected car space. Cruise

To remain competitive in the automotive industry, legacy automakers need to stay up-to-date on the latest self-driving and in-car experience technology. According to Business Insider Intelligence, many automakers are deploying multiple strategies to remain viable in the space, including working with tech startups, partnering with big tech firms, or building an in-house solution.

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Smart Infrastructure for Smart Cars: A Conversation with Dr. Stilgoe on the Hidden Dependencies Shaping Automated Vehicles

Automated vehicles navigate the road using built in sensors, and can be augmented with digital connectivity allowing the vehicle to communicate with nearby vehicles, with surrounding road infrastructure like traffic signs, and with the cloud-based networks providing real time driving updates, warning of changing weather or traffic conditions.

These technologies have the potential to create safer driving conditions and decrease crashes, allow new populations to access transportation through car sharing, bring mobility to disabled populations and the elderly, and support environmental gains including through increased fuel efficiency. Policies on the digital infrastructure enabling their connectivity, like 5G networks, as well as policies on the physical infrastructure, like road design, lane markings, and traffic signs, shape how the vehicles are developed, where they will be deployed, and who will be able to access their benefits.

To cut through the hype around automated vehicles and discuss the technology’s digital and physical challenges, we spoke with Dr. Stilgoe, a Professor at University College London in Science and Technology Studies and lead of Driverless Futures. Dr. Stilgoe has engaged public dialogue on connected and automated vehicles with the British government, and his new book, Who’s Driving Innovation?, examines collaborative governance for automated vehicles.

Image Credit

Jack Stilgoe

You’ve previously written that “autonomous vehicles” are not really that “autonomous.” Can you explain what you mean by that?

Historians like David Mindell have written about how all so-called autonomous systems are conditional – they depend on particular things in the real world in order for them to function. The real world cannot be ignored and is sort of swept to the sidelines because of this insistence that a technology is possible that can come along and solve problems by simply replacing an aspect of human labour. That narrative of autonomy is quite a powerful one and it is particularly within self-driving cars where the problem frame is so often the one of human error. Humans are terrible drivers, they get drunk, distracted, crash and kill each other all the time. Therefore, if we can replace humans with autonomous systems, we can solve that problem….

That’s the technical critique of autonomy. There’s also a political critique of autonomy and machines which comes from philosophers like Langdon Winner, for example, who said technology is itself not autonomous: it has a direction, it has purposes, it is built with values inside it, therefore to talk about technology having an autonomous driving force is to depoliticize it and make it impossible for consideration through democratic debate. If we want to have a democratic debate about new technologies, we have to reject that idea of technological autonomy as well.

Speaking of the entanglements with the real world, what does the infrastructure for automated vehicles need to look like?

At the moment, we have some of the market leaders in self-driving cars saying that we can do what we need to do with existing infrastructure. They say the infrastructure doesn’t need to change at all. I don’t buy that. I don’t buy that as a short-term consideration and I certainly don’t buy that as a long-term consideration.

You do have some developers who are admitting that it would be convenient if bits of the physical infrastructure were upgraded to make life easier for self-driving cars. For example, the addition of a smart traffic light, that just transmits its status to a vehicle....There are some developers that are saying having pedestrians and self-driving cars mixing on the open road is too hard, so it would be convenient if pedestrians just behaved a bit more predictably. Even though pedestrians aren’t part of the infrastructure, they’re part of the world surrounding the self-driving car - the physical, material world.

Then you have aspects of digital connectivity. Self-driving car developers often talk about it in terms of Vehicle to Vehicle communication, V2V, and then Vehicle to other things, V2X, or vehicle to infrastructure communication. [Developers] say it would be so much easier if these things could talk to each other.

Do you see approaches varying by country?

If you compare the approaches taken by governments and developers in the US to those taken by people in Singapore, or China there are very different emphases placed on infrastructure. Policy makers in Singapore are much more ready to say we’re going to design a new place, a new neighborhood, and we’re going to design it around AVs -- we’re going to design an infrastructure that suits this technology, even though we don’t know what this technology is going to look like. In China, new cities are being designed with AVs as part of the brief. In the US, if you talk to developers, a lot of them have given up on infrastructure. When it comes to digital infrastructure, I think that’s where you’ll see some really interesting battles. Around 5G and connectivity, I think you will see China and the US take very different approaches. I think European countries will mix and match a bit of those. You see very different types of technologies, so to even talk about an automated vehicle is to talk about [different things]. You have the Waymo idea, where you take a normal car, take out the driver, and put in a computer. You have, in some places like the Heathrow airport in London, these low speed shuttles trundling along in very tightly defined design domains. And you have, in China, state-owned enterprises working with cities on developing infrastructure at the same time as developing the artificial intelligence that goes in the car.

It seems there is a combination of both new and old infrastructure that must interact in order to allow for AVs. What are some of the risks and benefits of laying a new transportation system on top of older network infrastructures?

I would be more considered about the generic aspects of any technological infrastructure, which are things like the risk of technological lock in that then makes reversibility really hard. People like me, when we think about technological lock in, we might look at examples like the qwerty keyboard: the classic case in technological lock in, a sub optimal technology we’re currently hooked on and it’s impossible to develop any alternative. We can think about car-based infrastructures in the same way. If you live in Phoenix, Arizona, you are in a car dependent society and it is really hard to imagine an alternative to car dependence there. The danger would be that as soon as we start imagining infrastructure around one set of technologies, it locks out other technologies and it reduces our ability to adapt. For example, we can’t have mixed economies of public and private transport. We may well be designing streets to suit AVs, but in doing so we may be making it harder for cyclists, pedestrians and other people.

We see some international cross-border trials popping up in specific places, coming with their own unique set of challenges for coordination. What role do standards play in facilitating this international cooperation?

I think everybody – all the developers - are starting to recognize that standards are going to be absolutely vital. In the world of cars, there are so many standards. It is highly standardized, which means in almost all cases, you can sell a car in any country in the world. They are developed to global standards and the global standards have made that form of trade and global development work.

I think one really interesting question, is whether self-driving car systems are going to be hyper-localized in the way that some public transport systems are, or whether they are going to be developed according to one internationally agreed upon standard, and then rolled out in different places. It may well be that the standards setting means that all the companies come together and agree upon a set of standards….. If that does happen, what you’re likely to see is the standardization of the world in the same way as roads in most places look pretty like other roads. There are some points of disagreement, but it is possible to drive in one place even if you learned to drive in a completely different car from another place. It would be really interesting to see if that happens when it comes to self-driving cars, or if it goes in the other direction and places develop their own bespoke systems and the technology looks very different in different places.

How might this technology and its dependencies interact with existing societal inequalities? Essentially, who benefits and who might not?

The guilty secret about technological innovation is that it tends to widen inequalities rather than close them. And that’s not at all the story we like to tell ourselves about innovation. The question is, when it comes to a new technology, how do we make sure that the benefits don’t just go to the same people who have always benefited from technological change? How do we make sure that the technology benefits the people who it is claimed will benefit from the technology?

In the case of self-driving cars, there are safety benefits. So, we look at who is at most at risk from current modes of transport and how might we alleviate those risks. We might think about disabled groups, people who for some reason can’t drive, and how might we target those needs in innovation. We might think about people who don’t currently have access to many modes of transport, people in ‘transport deserts,’ and we might seek to target those needs.

But the story of autonomy doesn’t really do that: the story in which what you’re simply doing is taking out the driver and putting in a computer, you’re not considering particular groups of beneficiaries. You’re just hoping for a trickle-down model of innovation, where we hope the richest people will be early adopters and eventually the benefits of the technology will reach other people.

A more deliberate approach to technology policy would be to say, no let’s actually target those needs. If we started with the requirements of those groups, how might we develop technology differently? This might look like, for example, targeting particular places, designing particular vehicles, thinking about the ownership of the technology. Is it owned by private individuals or is it a public transport system? And that might change the design of the system.

It is easy to imagine a future where gaps in digital networks prevent populations from accessing automated vehicles, where the automotive industry must build specialized parts to meet regionalized technology requirements, and where automated driving across international borders is hindered by lack of technological interoperability. By asking questions now on the direction of autonomous vehicles, such challenges can be identified and can provide opportunities for strategic collaboration. Engaging in public conversation, participating in international standard settings bodies, and leveraging international agreements to coordinate infrastructure like 5G and facilitate data sharing, can help realize and distribute the benefits of autonomous vehicles.