Self-driving cars (SDC) equipped with driver control will be on the roads before 2025, with fully autonomous SDCs hitting the roads by 2030, according to study published by IHC Automotive.
Titled “Emerging Technologies: Autonomous Cars -- Not If, But When,” the study suggests that sales of self-driving cars will grow from 230,000 in 2025 to 11.8 million in 2035. Of these, 7 million will be SDCs with driver controls and 4.8 million will be completely autonomous. And sometime after 2050, IHC predicts that nearly all cars will be self-driving.
The price rise for an SDC will add between $7,000 and $10,000 to a car's sticker price in 2025, and the figure will fall to $5,000 by 2030 and $3,000 by 2035.
The report said that implementation of a legal framework for self-driving cars and establishment of government rules and regulations will be the main barriers to having such a car on the streets.
“Accident rates will plunge to near zero for SDCs, although other cars will crash into SDCs, but as the market share of SDCs on the highway grows, overall accident rates will decline steadily,” said Egil Juliussen, principal analyst for IHC Automotive. “Traffic congestion and air pollution per car should also decline because SDCs can be programmed to be more efficient in their driving patterns.”
Tech companies and automakers have been working on driverless systems for some time, and several companies have promised autonomous cars for sale by 2020.
[IHC Automotive]
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