A MAJORITY of new cars coming off production lines have autonomous functions, such as automatic emergency braking, self-parking, lane assist and cruise control.
There is a race to develop full self-driving (FSD) vehicles or vehicles that allow the driver to read, play Gran Turismo racing video games or sleep while the car heads for its destination.
The driver can even sit at the back and be "chauffeur-driven" without the need for a chauffeur. Tech giants and automotive manufacturers have invested billions of dollars in FSD technology development.
If there is a distinction between the tech giants and automotive manufacturers' approaches to FSD technology development is that the latter are developing cars that allow humans to be in control.
Meanwhile, tech giants are going straight for what is described by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) as Level Five autonomy, which is fully driverless.
SAE has defined six levels of autonomy, going from Level Zero, mainly mechanical without any self-driving capabilities, to Level Five. Automotive companies seem to be aiming for Level Four where the human driver remains in control.
Google could be said to have started the trend of the so-called "tech companies", where computer technology companies that emerged barely a few decades ago have grown to gargantuan size. It is now developing driverless cars.
In the past, before the emergence of "tech giants", when people talked about advanced technology, they were reminded of the manufacturing sector as that is where the most advanced technologies were found.
Manufacturing is still home to advanced technology, but these days, when the word "technology" is mentioned, most people probably imagine computer companies.
Some people might feel a twinge of cynicism about that because they might think that developing software is easier to work with than hardware, and they probably have a good argument.
A virtual car can do all sorts of things in the virtual world. Many popular video games, such as the Gran Turismo series and Wipeout 2097, have shown how good designers and programmers are in the software world.
However, as soon as one steps out of the virtual world, things get complicated, as tech companies have found out. Developing autonomous cars is not easy.
One can make a car move about conventionally and park itself. But discounting all the free will exercised by humans in the real world, something that perhaps software developers who are cocooned in a virtual world are accustomed to doing, is unrealistic.
The real world is a wild and dangerous place.
So far, no one, neither a tech giant nor a large automaker, has developed an autonomous car that can legally operate on the roads in a wide area with total freedom. There are many test vehicles permitted to navigate a restricted route, and there are autonomous ones that can be used within the grounds of their owners.
Nonetheless, tech giants and automotive companies are developing autonomous vehicles in every category, and almost everyone believes that driverless cars will feature prominently on public roads in the future.
It is difficult to say which side is ahead in the race to develop FSD vehicles. Tech giants are approaching the challenge from the software development angle, while automakers have the hardware skills. These days, automotive development is largely about computing.
That said, if one has to say which side is in the lead, it is probably the automotive companies because they have a long experience in developing a large number of autonomous functions — advanced driver assistance systems.
That is a strong advantage to have in this race.
SOFTWARE, HARDWARE DEVELOPMENT
The writer is head of Innovative Electromobility Research Lab, School of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM)