There is an immense amount of interest in the concept of a driverless cars. Yes, companies like Uber are the ones that are most curious about what they could do with driverless cars. But the average consumer is also very interested. The idea that you could buy a car that will just get you where you want to go – with no need for you to drive – is revolutionary. It also means that our roads could become safer in the future – theoretically. But when are we going to see mainstream driverless cars? The answer is complicated.
Some of the tech is already there. You already see companies having test models out on the road. That is why we sometimes hear news about a driverless car getting into an accident on the road. That is because there are some test models out on the roads in America. But those are very few cars. The number needs to be a lot higher before this can become something mainstream. And the first step is seeing tech devices like the hybrid coupler getting better. When these devices are more powerful and efficient, we will see a quicker rollout of faster internet connections around the nation.
And when there is faster internet, it means that driverless cars will have a much easier time being connected to the network. And it also means that companies producing these cars will feel like a large fleet can all connect to the internet and transmit data in quick time. Those low latency and high speed connections are not around everywhere. And they are not reliable enough right now to support driverless cars. So we are going to need to wait a few years before we see driverless cars becoming the norm. It could be five years, ten years or even longer.
