Self-Driving Car Industry Overview:
The demand for self-driving cars is skyrocketing. According to Allied Marketing Research, the global smart car market was valued at $63.03 billion in 2019 and is forecasted to reach $225.16 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 17.1%.
EV support policies in 2020 and Covid-19 stimulus measures to the automotive sector were an impetus to the growth of self-driving car sales (particularly electric vehicles) even during the pandemic when the entire automotive industry was witnessing a trough in sales.
Pioneers like Elon Musk brought about the smart vehicle revolution by believing that EVs can be as good as regular cars. The driving experience can be smarter using AI, Neural Networks, ML, IoT, and more. Moreover, he also has just announced Level 4 autonomous Tesla vehicles in 2022.
Along with enhanced driving experience, here are the benefits of technology in self-driving cars:
Performance Optimization:
Smart Cars send updates and maintenance notifications from the car to the maintenance engineers or the car owner/company on their phones to guide for any servicing requirements. Also, it gives a system warning in case of an anomaly in the car and conducts smart charging, battery diagnostics, cell balancing, and more.
Safety:
Sensors can help navigate safely in driverless vehicles. These sensors in the car detect distance from vehicles and objects around it, thereby keeping it safe.
Financial benefits:
Some insurance companies, especially in the US, offer driving sensors to track how drivers operate their vehicles safely. The safer the drivers, the better it affects their auto insurance quotes on time of renewal. Drivers must pay lower premiums for their car insurance– creating a win-win situation: cheap car insurance with an on-road safety attitude.
However, self driving cars do come with a host of data privacy concerns, let’s discuss some of them:
Safety concerns about the car’s systems being hacked
In 2018, on remotely hacking smart cars, Phil Yannella, a partner in Ballard Spahr’s Privacy & Data Security Group, in the podcast “The Legal Impact of Autonomous Vehicles (Part II),” suggested that there are several areas in the smart car market where consumers and lawmakers might want to think critically. But, he added, though it may appear like a sci-fi thriller, the fear of hackers accessing and controlling a car remotely is, unfortunately, more than theoretical,” Yannella said.
Quite recently, The Irish Times reported that David Colombo, a 19-year-old self-described information technology specialist, had claimed to hack 25 Tesla cars in 13 countries. He said that he leveraged a flaw in Tesla software that allows him to unlock doors and windows, start the cars without keys and disable the car’s security systems.
Privacy concerns about the amount of data collected and whom it might get sold to:
For self-driving cars, the sensors and cameras capture an enormous amount of data compared to regular vehicles – for example, smart cars generate enough data to fill up an iPhone within half a minute of driving. For self-driving car companies, this means oceans of data to sell. For example, an Israeli startup, Otonomo, consensually sells vehicle data to parking apps, which use it to recognize nearby open parking spaces for users. The CEO of Otonomo, Ben Volkow, states that the potential for profit from vehicle data will be more than the cars themselves in the future.
However, not all data is used with consent.
Professor Ellen P. Goodman at the reputed Rutgers University, believes that the conversation around smart driving cars is too much on physical safety and not enough about the data privacy issues. State laws address safety, manual control, and the registration of these smart cars while the data privacy issue goes unaddressed.
Last year in a Congressional hearing about self-driving cars, representatives from giants such as Google and General Motors offered no clear answer on questions regarding implementing a minimum standard for protecting consumers’ vehicle data.
Bugs and software errors that could cause damage.
Earlier this month, a fatal crash occurred in Paris when a Tesla Model 3 Taxi went rogue. Here’s the video of moments before the collision as captured in a cafe’s CCTV. The driver complained that the car accelerated on his own and gave him no control – 1 was dead, and around 20 were injured in the crash. It was unclear whether the Tesla vehicle was in auto-pilot mode.
Following this, the Paris Government banned Tesla Model 3 cars in their Taxi fleet, as reported by the BBC. Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, the Transport Minister, told RMC radio that he had spoken with the Tesla Europe’s chief executive, who told him there had been no safety alerts about the Model 3.
So, how smart is it to own a smart car?
It is wise to buy a smart car, considering its benefits. However, it would be wiser until smart vehicles and charging stations become the norm. Then, with Governmental policies in place and manufacturers refining their cars, the chances of your data (as well as personal) safety would be pretty high. And considering the pace of the smart car craze, smart cars being normal is a thing of the very near future.
