Dr. Kara Kockleman: The Future of Self-Driving Cars

Our speaker on March 21 was Dr. Kara Kockleman of the University of Texas, who talked to us about automated vehicles. Austin is one of the test cities for self-driving vehicles such as those made by Google. There are also connected vehicles, which still have a driver but send out location, speed etc so that cars can learn to avoid each other and give a warning to the driver. These types of vehicles may be standard and/or required by 2020, and it is relatively inexpensive to add the connectivity to older cars. Dr. Kara Kockleman has performed simulated fleet scenarios for connected cars as well as self-driving vehicles that show connected cars could be at 100% by 2030 if such technology is required and self-driving cars would be at 90% by 2045. She has also studied scenarios involving self-driving cars that are shared vehicles. Due to the fact that most vehicles sit idle for 23 hours per day, such a system would be feasible over time, and if electric vehicles were used, the system would pay for itself at $1/mile. Watch for these new technologies at a future near you!