What does the future of autonomous vehicles look like?
Autonomous vehicles—or, in SAE parlance, cars with L4 driving automation, meaning that humans are not in control of the vehicle—are not yet fully specified. There is no universal agreement on the type of sensors, the number of sensors, the placement of sensors and the type and amount of processing. Furthermore, the hardware and software stacks for L4 trucks, L4 robotaxis and L4 passenger cars will all be different. Trucks require longer range on the highway because of their higher mass, robotaxis need to find ride-hailing passengers at long lateral distances and passenger cars need to look beautiful, with no ugly sensors hanging off the car chassis. But what is universally true for all autonomous vehicles is the following: