Do you understand the five levels of autonomous driving technology?

Since the car's appearance, there has been talking of cars that will move on their own at some point. This goal seems more and more plausible today, but there are still steps to be taken until it is possible and safe. Do you understand the five levels of autonomous driving technology?

Driving a vehicle autonomously will change the way we travel: less congested traffic, lower travel costs, elimination of parking problems (lack of space, wasted time looking for a place, the need to have a driver's license are just a tiny part of the advantages that will make everyday travel faster, less stressful and much more accessible.

The autonomous driving mode will also reduce CO2 emissions, undoubtedly improving the quality of the air we breathe. However, fully autonomous vehicles will not become a reality overnight, but they are not as far as we would be tempted to believe.

But there is a time, a period over which even the most impatient promoters of autonomous vehicles will not be able to pass. Also, as was the case with the implementation of technologies for 100% electric cars and in the case of autonomous vehicles, a standardization and especially a staging of the introduction of new technologies on the market is very much needed.

The industry will always follow the trends.

Fundamentally, as the history of the automotive industry has shown us, it must meet two conditions for a new concept to be successful: it must be widely available and universally accepted.

We have had many examples over time, either of cars "born before their times" or ideas, which, although brilliant and plausible, did not pass, so to speak, the test of the market or of time.

But now, the industry can no longer afford to risk. And we see how a trend once started is followed by all car manufacturers in the field. Moreover, no one risks, on the one hand, staying out of a trend, deliberately delaying, but not staying out of it. On the other hand, everyone has to stick to certain development and implementation program.

Of course, it has been proven that making a 100% safe autonomous vehicle is not easy in practice. Prototypes have been built and tested for almost 20 years because although the idea is simple, it has proved much more complex in practice.

Driving is one of the most complicated daily activities of man. Just following the laws of the road is not enough for a car to drive autonomously as if driven by a human, because the human driver does many other things: maintains eye contact with other road users, reacts according to weather conditions, and in general, man makes a series of decisions almost impossible to codify in the form of rules.

We will not now deal with how moral, useful, cost-effective or safe a 100% autonomous car is. Or if we want it to become a reality, to use such a car, or if we have the strength to send a car without a driver to take us or take our child from school! We want to point out that, despite all the question marks that this technology raises, the almost impossible problems that occurred in this process - accidents, issues related to insurance (establishing guilt), etc. - things are moving forward.

In industry, everything is now converging towards a future autonomous movement of vehicles.

SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers) has classified autonomous travel after five levels that specify how capable a vehicle is to operate alone and the degree of human intervention. This classification system is currently used as a reference point in any discussion of the degree of automation of vehicles.

Level 0 of autonomous driving is typical of any car. The driver handles all driving, steering, acceleration, and braking/stopping operations, and the vehicle has no movement control system. Virtually any car offers or has a zero level of autonomy.