Bosch and Daimler have inked a development agreement to bring fully automated and driverless technology to the roads by the beginning of the next decade, the companies said.
Bosch, the global manufacturing conglomerate, and Daimler, the parent company of Mercedez-Benz – both headquartered in Germany – said the goal is to “achieve the production-ready development of a driving system [that] will allow cars to drive fully autonomously in the city.”
The firms said they’re working on SAE Level 4 and Level 5 technology. Based on SAE International’s levels of driving automation for on-road vehicles, Level 4 is high automation (in which the system controls steering, braking, accelerating and all other tasks in some driving situations) and Level 5 is full automation (in which the system controls steering, braking, accelerating and all other tasks in all driving situations).
“By introducing fully automated and driverless driving to the urban environment, Bosch and Daimler aim to improve the flow of traffic in cities, enhance safety on the road and provide an important building block for the way traffic will work in the future,” the companies said in a news release. “The technology will, among other things, boost the attraction of car sharing. It will allow people to make the best possible use of their time in the vehicle and open up new mobility opportunities for people without a driver’s license, for example.”
If their vision becomes reality, customers will be able to order an automated shared car via their smartphone, and the vehicle will autonomously come to the users.
Daimler noted that its car2go subsidiary has 2 million users, making the company the world’s largest provider of “free-floating car sharing.”
