Self-Driving Cars: Bragging Rights Won't Guarantee Success

Toyota, Ford, GM, Tesla and others are in the race, but an expert says just because you're first doesn't mean you'll have success

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May 09, 2018
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The automotive industry would like the public to believe there is a mad dash for the development of the first driverless car.

But, there really is no race. It’s not a fight to finish and the best don’t always finish first. In fact, they might finish somewhere in the middle, or even last.

Allen Adamson, a brand expert who makes it his business to tell businesses how to finish first, says the public has it wrong.

“People think that the first company that comes out with a self-driving car is going to win, the first (autonomous) brand that comes out is going to win,’’ Adamson said. “I don’t think that’s going to be the case.”

Sorry, Tesla (TSLA, Financial). Even if you get bragging rights to the first-of-its kind, other automakers will eventually steal your business. In other words, the market will become saturated with self-driving vehicles, as the technology spreads and pricing becomes more competitive.

“Every car company is rushing to be the first,’’ Adamson said. “But that doesn’t necessarily follow with being the most successful.”

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Adamson, who is the co-founder of Metaforce, a New York market consultancy firm, likens this process to how the progression of innovations in the automotive industry have evolved over time. For example, once automakers perfected cars with automatic transmissions, these gearboxes became the standard. It’s no different with features, such as navigation systems, airbags and anti-lock brakes, Adamson said.

Race to the finish line

The March death of a pedestrian by a self-driving Uber car in Arizona put the brakes on some of the progress that’s been driving one of our era’s hottest inventions.

But most automotive companies are trying to keep pace with the development of these Jetsons-era automated driving systems.

Automakers like Toyota (TM, Financial), Ford (F, Financial) and General Motors (GM, Financial) are working on test sites for developing their vehicles. The experiments and on-road tests involve multiple states, including Michigan, Florida and California. Many of the tests involve requiring the cars to handle difficult surfaces, like slippery roads and congested highways.

Toyota recently announced a plan to build a 60-acre facility in Michigan. It stopped using public roads because of the pedestrian fatality. The company had been sharing a location with Honda (HMC, Financial) and Lyft in California.

Uber has a location in Pittsburgh. Waymo, formerly the self-driving car project of Alphabet (GOOGL, Financial), does its testing in central California.

Ford recently expanded its program to south Florida. It is holding pilot programs with Domino’s Pizza (DPZ, Financial) as part of an effort to deploy cars to do pizza and packaging delivery.

And, General Motors is investing $100 million to upgrade its Michigan facilities so that it can mass produce the vehicles also known as electric Chevy Bolts. The automaker said it would be its first car without pedals or a steering wheel.

Safety concerns

Federal regulators will play a key role as companies will have to meet a series of rigorous regulations before fully autonomous vehicles will be allowed on public roads.

So far, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has given the nod to the development of autonomous vehicles, as part of federal guidance in late 2017. On its website, federal regulators point out safety and mobility advocates believe the automated vehicle technologies can lead to fewer traffic fatalities and increased mobility.

One major concern, however, is hackers and others will abuse the sensors, camera lasers and navigation systems that allow the vehicle to operate safely. For example, the sensors can be blinded or jammed, which makes it difficult for the car to identify slippery roads or potential obstructions.

Communication devices on the cars also will make them vulnerable to spoofing, according to Anomali, an international cybersecurity platform that conducts threat intelligence.

For example, spoofed messages can be generated from a compromised car or to a car from another source in attempt to force changes in a vehicle’s behavior, Anomali’s report said. Or, social engineering can be done against human passengers, where communication messages can be sent directly to onboard travelers. The attacker may try to compromise the car or the passenger’s other digital devices and accounts. In cases, the cars will transmit passenger’s names, addresses and other personal information.

Shifting ahead

Companies have been tossing around a lot of dates as the anticipated launch of their “first” self-driving cars. But there’s a lot of speculation surrounding when the actual and fully autonomous vehicles will hit the market.

Forecasts show that fully autonomous vehicles will be on the road before 2022.

Before then, a lot of work has to be done, said Adamson, whose writes about self-driving cars in his new book, “Shift Ahead: How the Best Companies Stay Relevant in a Fast-Changing World.”

Obviously, carmakers are working on the software and hardware to make the cars work. There are also many regulatory hoops and other hurdles they must jump through to get on the road. But most important is how consumers will react to the self-driving phenomenon. Will they adopt the idea? The most critical factor that will determine the invention’s success is whether it becomes “relevant” to people. Any smart brand-builder should be asking in their road race: What benefit are we offering and does it solve a real problem? Adamson said.

Younger generations likely will be more open to the idea, he said. Consumers under the age of 26 don’t have the same passion for car ownership compared to previous generations, for example.

But once the idea hits a critical mass and everybody adopts it, the driverless car phenomenon will suddenly lose its novelty, Adamson said.

The cars will seem just as commonplace as “a pair of windshield wipers when it rains,” Adamson said.