Reinventing the Wheel: Driverless Cars as Immersive Experiences

About a month ago, we had a surprise visit from one of CES 2015’s breakout stars, the Mercedes F 015 Luxury in Motion. We mentioned in a previous post that the driverless car, together with it’s camera crew and police escort, invaded North Beach on March 4th and the crowds flocked to catch a view. People could not stop snapping pictures of the futuristic machine and everyone’s jaw dropped when the autonomous vehicle decided to self park.

Besides having the much talked-about driverless feature, the Mercedes F 015 takes the autonomous aspect a step further and creates a livable experience within what has conventionally been a utilitarian space. The lounge-like, plush interior has fully rotating seats so all passengers can face each other. The interior surfaces display digital information, making your side door your new touch-enabled computer screen.

Most of what the “driver” -- or in this case the human sitting in the seat historically designated to the “driver” -- interfaces with is meant to engage and is not conducive towards actual driving. The ideal situation -- have an artificial chauffeur drive you around while you dedicate your commute time towards other interests.

This got us thinking about the possibilities, as well as the risks, of reimagining conventional transportation as immersive environments. Interiors will come with features meant to enrich your experience, making driving and navigation a worry of the past. The daily commute will be enhanced in a variety of ways, from providing a virtual desktop, to enjoying 360 degree pastoral vistas. Either way, these new spaces will become versatile environments full of customizable options.

Driverless cars as productive spaces

IDEO, a “human-centered” global design company, explored some of the possibilities in their 2014 study, the Future of Automobility. In addition to imagining the standard driverless four-passenger vehicle, they also explored future cars as autonomous urban-delivery systems and portable office spaces that drive to you.

The delivery pod, which IDEO refers to as the 21st Century Mule, aims to deliver everything from “your new jeans to a hot lunch” in a speedy fashion. Once it arrives, all you will need to do is walk up to the pod and it will relinquish your package after a quick biometric scan. You will also be able to drop off any packages you wish to send, making the pod’s stop even more efficient. If the pod is a little early to a scheduled delivery, it will send a beacon signal letting folks know it is in the area and available to accept any outgoing packages. The “mule” will also provide real-time location data, will relocate if there’s an urgent change in scheduling, and will even rearrange packages within the car to accommodate any route changes, making this vehicle fully autonomous in both driving as well as other smart applications.

IDEO also explored the idea of the “Inverse Commute” with their concept autonomous vehicle, “Work on Wheels”. This driverless pod’s interior serves as a fully functional office space and can travel to office workers, instead of the other way around. Companies will be able to book underutilized open spaces throughout the city where employees can meet and hopefully cut their commute time. The pod is designed with transparent surfaces, making the interior’s visuals as beautiful as its surroundings. The surfaces will double as interactive displays, further optimizing work efficiency. So companies could have an important board meeting, a company retreat, and house a client demo, all using the same autonomous pod.

IDEO predicts these concepts may become viable in about 15 years. We are taking steps towards this driverless future, but the road may be a little rocky along the way (pun fully intended). However, car and software companies alike are making a mad dash towards the future of driverless cars.

“Look ma, no hands!” Works fine until something goes wrong.

Just last week, Delphi, a British car maker, completed a driverless cross-country ride with their autonomous vehicle, the Roadrunner. They say that 99% of the ride was autonomous, leaving one percent to human intervention. Dephi says it is the first time a driverless car has completed a US coast-to-coast trip.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, recently announced at Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference that later this year Tesla will release software for their Model S which enables some semi-autonomous features. Options will include an auto-pilot feature, to be used in highway situations, with the driver at the ready in case of software failure.

Cruise Automation is throwing their hat in the ring with their aftermarket “add-on” system, which can be installed in some modern cars. There is apparently a high-demand for Cruise Automation; the company is no longer taking pre-orders for their 2015 units. This system also requires a human driver on stand-by.

Ever ambitious Google envisioned their driverless car as completely autonomous. The California Department of Motor Vehicles, however, has decreed that all cars on CA roads need a steering wheel and brake pedal, further emphasizing the hesitation to allow fully autonomous cars to roam public roads.

All this points to the fact that the transitional technology towards fully autonomous vehicles currently doesn’t support a completely humanless driving experience. At the present, all “autonomous” features require a human fail-safe. This need for constant human supervision is at odds with our desire to engage in other productive/entertaining activities besides driving. But with our current technology, where do we draw the line between convenience and safety?

The most inhibiting factor, the human experience

It looks like focus, for the time being, is key. There is a fine line between engagement and distraction while sitting behind the wheel of a present-day driverless car. Perhaps Bryan Reimer, a research scientist in MIT’s Age Lab, said it best when he declared that the “most inhibiting factors” in the development of driverless cars “will be factors related to the human experience.”

On an even more cautionary tip, Clifford Nass, co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Automotive Research stated in an online post:

“It turns out that may be the most dangerous moment for autonomous vehicles. We may have this terrible irony that when the car is driving autonomously it is much safer, but because of the inability of humans to get back in the loop it may ultimately be less safe.”

The road towards vehicle autonomy is fraught with stumbling blocks. But, as we’ve seen from the tech world the past few decades, when there’s a will there’s a way. Hopefully, changes will happen in a smooth and coordinated manner between tech giants, automobile manufacturers, and the state/federal government.

We’re hoping these changes will happen in a timely manner so we can soon fall asleep while watching cat videos play in the background during our daily commute.