To see what tomorrow’s motorists thought of this, Bosch asked a group of today’s six year olds, what they want from their car of the future. Watch the results here.
The car of the future: penguin-loving, sweetie-powered and driverless
All of the six year olds that spoke to Bosch as part of its #asmartercar campaign said that they wanted their cars to be driverless, with most expecting their car to be more than just a method of transportation.
Kobei said: “If cars don’t have a driver that means that anyone can drive them no matter what age. That means that even people as old as 70 or 80 can drive them.”
While Meredith, added: “The front seats [could] turn around to face the back seats and there would be a table in the middle so if we want to eat, we can push a button and the car drives itself.”
Most of the children interviewed also expect the car of the future to have easy parking solutions.
Future driver Ava said: “We will tell a sensor where to go and then it will magically go there and park itself.” With Daniel adding: “It [the car] looks for a parking space and then it will just park itself… it is very clever.” The majority of kids also want their cars to be powered by electricity in the future, with Aaryan saying, “My car will use electricity to run so that it is kind to the penguins and polar bears.” However, some of the children came up with a few more novel solutions to reducing fossil fuel usage and Lela wanted her car to be “powered by sweeties.”
Adults less accepting of new technologies
Despite the next generation’s excitement about future car technology, a survey questioning a sample of British adults, the current motorists, found that they are less sure about driverless technology. This is contrary to the fact that driverless technology is already available in a number of production cars.
When asked what they expect a new car to be able to do in 2025, two thirds (66%) of desired functions are already available in production cars today, while the remaining 33% will enter production within two years. This includes cars that can park themselves.
The #asmartercar campaign by Bosch aims to improve knowledge and acceptance of driverless car technology through better education. The survey found that drivers aged 55+ are most likely to say that a driverless car would not make them feel safer in any situation (42%). These people are also most likely to say they don’t know enough about these cars (27%).
The YouGov Omnibus survey of over 2,000 respondents also showed that while 28% of car drivers said that they were wary about using driverless car technology on the road, the most popular requests for the car of the future took control away from the driver. When surveyed, most UK adults said they expected their future cars in 2025 to be able to maintain a safe distance from the car in front (66%), take control to avoid an accident (56%), park itself (55%) and predict traffic and change route (51%).
Dr. Dirk Hoheisel, a member of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH, said: “Our research shows that there is a clear disconnect between motorists’ perception of driverless technology and reality. The introduction of driverless technology is a gradual process, with automated features first being introduced in non-critical situations. However, we expect that highly automated vehicles will be driving themselves on the motorway starting in 2020, with fully automated technology starting after 2025.”
Videos of the future motorist’s responses and more information on Bosch’s survey is available at www.bosch.co.uk/asmartercar.
Original Source: Bosch
