Highly automated light duty vehicles to begin in 2020 – Navigant Research

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Uber’s Volvo XC90 self driving car is shown during a demonstration of self-driving automotive technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Light duty REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk

Governments beginning to approve legislation to allow commercial deployment on public roads

Governments are starting to approve legislation allowing deployment of vehicles with increasingly automated capabilities, finds a new report from Navigant Research.

It analyzes regional markets for light duty passenger vehicles (LDVs) and medium or heavy duty commercial vehicles with highly automated driving capability, providing forecasts for global market sales through 2035.

Automated driving technology continues to advance in capability, and many manufacturers now offer standard or low-cost Level 1 systems across most consumer and commercial vehicle segments.

Highly automated driving has the potential to bring a variety of benefits to society, including increased safety in long-range driving and increased convenience and efficiency from on-demand vehicle fleets.

“Automotive OEMs, suppliers, and technology companies such as Waymo and Apple are investing billions of dollars in the hopes of commercializing automated driving technologies. For the companies involved, they see potential new revenue streams from the mobility and data services that are enabled while at the same time building a market for safer and more efficient vehicles,” said Sam Abuelsamid, senior research analyst at Navigant Research.

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Highly automated Level 3 and 4 systems continue to be tested extensively, including in public pilot programs, to validate the technology and evaluate whether the expected benefits will occur.

According to the report, governments globally are beginning to approve legislation to allow commercial deployment on public roads, and as Level 4 vehicles become more capable and able to handle a greater variety of conditions, they will evolve into fully automated Level 5 vehicles.

The reportMarket Data: Automated Driving Vehicles, provides projections of the size of regional markets for consumer (light duty) and commercial (medium and heavy duty) vehicles with highly automated driving capability.

Global market sales forecasts for consumer vehicles for three different scenarios, as well as projected light duty vehicle populations based on the different uptake rates for automated vehicles, extend through 2035.