Unless you own an antique car, it may be hard to imagine driving without the many automotive safety features introduced during the second half of the 20th century. Seat belts, padded dashboards, collapsible steering columns, head restraints, child restraints, disc and antilock brakes, airbags, and more all contributed to dramatic improvements in safety. According to the National Safety Council, the U.S. had 7.59 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven in 1950. By 2000, the number had dropped to 1.58.
The push to make cars safer bore results in the last century thanks partly to these mechanical and structural innovations. It’s bearing results in this century thanks to ADAS.
What is ADAS?
If you go new-car shopping, you’ll likely encounter a wide range of electronic features designed to help keep you and your passengers safer. Collectively referred to as “advanced driver assistance systems” (ADAS), these include adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection, surround view, collision avoidance, lane departure warning, cross-traffic alert and emergency braking. OEMs introduced most of these features over the last two decades as options in luxury cars. Today, they’re standard in many affordable makes and models.
At their core, ADAS features use technologies such as radar, lidar, ultrasound, and video transmitters, all controlled by microprocessors.
It’s really not a stretch to say the modern automobile is a rolling electronic gadget. That gadget is designed to counteract some of the variability (inattention, inexperience, etc.) possibly introduced by the human behind the wheel.
The era of autonomous driving has begun
At the current cutting edge of ADAS are cars that allow conditional autonomous driving. In 2022, Mercedes-Benz claimed to be the first OEM to offer such capability with its Drive Pilot system. Under certain conditions, the driver can remove their hands from the wheel and feet from the pedals. The vehicle’s sensors and computer brain take over.
As an optional feature on a German luxury car, Drive Pilot is out of reach for most car buyers (it’s also only available in Germany at the time of this writing). But if history is to be our guide, it’s only a matter of time before we see this level of autonomy on more, and less expensive, cars. Fortune Business Insights forecasts the ADAS market to grow from $27.52 billion in 2021 to $58.59 billion in 2028. This represents a CAGR of 11.4%.
Understanding levels of automation
While conditional autonomy may represent a small step in technology, the giant leap is yet to come. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has identified five levels of vehicle automation. Think of this as a standardized framework to help vehicle designers, engineers, regulators and others in the industry understand this evolution.
