By CRM staff
Toronto, Ontario – March 28, 2019 – When thinking about the future of the automotive industry its hard not to focus on autonomous vehicles. Collision Repair has prepared the latest autonomous vehicle news that you need to know!
How Ready is Canada?
As time carries on, vehicle technology continues to become more and more complex. Lower levels of autonomous cars are also on roads all over the world. This is nothing new.
The question is, how ready is Canada for this autonomous future?
KPMG released it’s 2019 Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index, a list of countries that are making the most progress toward a fully autonomous future, based on market and industry research, public surveys and other key data. The countries were rated based on 25 different measures within four sections: policy and legislation, technology and innovation, infrastructure, and consumer acceptance. The Netherlands has taken the number one spot, for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons being that the country is preparing a drivers license for an autonomous vehicle. “It basically focuses on the extent to which a vehicle can produce safe and predictable automated driving behaviours.”
Canada dropped five spots on the list from last year ranking at number 12.
“Canada has a good quality workforce and strong government leadership, with Ontario allowing tests of fully driverless vehicles, but the country’s large size and remote locations may stretch AV infrastructure,” the report said.
The full ranking:
- The Netherlands
- Singapore
- Norway
- United States
- Sweden
- Finland
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- United Arab Emirates
- Japan
- New Zealand
- Canada
- South Korea
- Israel
- Australia
- Austria
- France
- Spain
- Czech Republic
- China
- Hungary
- Russia
- Mexico
- India
- Brazil
VW and Ford’s Autonomous Alliance
Waymo, Google’s self-driving car project began in 2009. The company has reportedly spent billions of dollars on the technology and has openly admitted that the fully automated driving will take time. Waymo CEO John Krafcik pointed out, though driverless cars are “truly here”, they aren’t ubiquitous yet and autonomy always will have some constraints for decades to come.
To face the challenges posed by Waymo, other OEMs have been forming alliances. Just look at General Motors and Honda for example or Daimler, BMW, and Intel (Mobileye).
Volkswagen and Ford are the most recent manufacturers to join forces. It was just at the beginning of the year when Ford and Volkswagen announced that they would be forming an alliance to work on a number of projects. The OEMs were wanting to work together to first deliver medium pickup trucks for global customers for 2022 and intend to follow with commercial vans in Europe. The companies are also wanting to team up and explore electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and mobility services.
A recent report stated that Ford and Volkswagen were negotiating to make the Blue Oval’s autonomous vehicle – Argo, a joint venture between both of the OEMs.
“Volkswagen and Ford will harness our collective resources, innovation capabilities, and complementary market positions to even better serve millions of customers around the world. At the same time, the alliance will be a cornerstone for our drive to improve competitiveness,” said Volkswagen CEO Dr. Herbert Diess.
