Lifeboat Foundation

A self-driving lorry takes to Germany’s motorways.
Would you feel safe driving next to one?

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Mercedes F 015 Self Driving Car.

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The truck has smart systems including radars, cameras and active speed regulators and works without a human driver — although one has to be in the driver’s seat and take the wheel if necessary.

The standard Mercedes-Benz Actros, fitted with the intelligent “Highway Pilot” system, travelled 14 kilometres (about nine miles) on the A8 motorway, with a driver in the cabin but his hands off the wheel.

“Today’s premiere is a further important step towards the market maturity of autonomously driving trucks -– and towards the safe, sustainable road freight transport of the future,” said Wolfgang Bernhard, board member responsible for Daimler Trucks and Buses.

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For one, it’s way faster.

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Japan’s cabinet office, Kanagawa prefecture and Robot Taxi Inc. on Thursday said they will start experimenting with unmanned taxi service beginning in 2016. The service will be offered for approximately 50 people in Kanagawa prefecture, just south of Tokyo, with the auto-driving car carrying them from their homes to local grocery stores.

According to the project organizers, the cabs will drive a distance of about three kilometers (two miles), and part of the course will be on major avenues in the city. Crew members will be aboard the car during the experiment in case there is a need to avoid accidents.

Robot Taxi Inc., a joint venture between mobile Internet company DeNA Co. and vehicle technology developer ZMP Inc., is aiming to commercialize its driverless transportation service by 2020. The company says it will seek to offer unmanned cabs to users including travelers from overseas and locals in areas where buses and trains are not available.

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We all know that self-driving cars are cute and tend to be safer — at least according to Google’s self-released reports to date — but this new report has the self-driving revolution holding massive potential as one of the greatest things to happen to public health in the 21st century.

As The Atlantic reports, automated cars could save up to 300,000 lives per decade in the United States. Their reporting is based on this research paper by consulting firm McKinsey & Co., which is filled with fascinating ways that self-driving cars will help us accident-prone humans by midcentury.

From the McKinsey report (bold added by us to highlight the mind-blowing data):

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Tesla’s Model X has a feature that can filter the air to the quality of a hospital operating room.

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently did an interview in Denmark where he talked about all sorts of topics. Naturally, he spoke about where he see the future of the EV market going. The big problem that EV buyers have today are relatively short driving ranges offered. Tesla has the best driving range with its Model S able to go several hundred miles on a charge.

Musk answered a question from the interviewer on when we can expect to see EVs able to drive 1000km per charge, which is about 612 miles. Musk said that a Model S has already gone 500 miles on a charge, at low speeds.

He thinks that the Model S might be able to go 500 miles per charge by next year, but definitely by 2017. By 2020 Musk thinks that a driving distance of 1200 km, or about 746 miles, will be possible per charge. It’s unclear if Musk was talking about normal driving distance or hypermiling the EV.

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Sensors and robotics are two exponential technologies that will disrupt a multitude of billion-dollar industries.

This post (part 3 of 4) is a quick look at how three industries — transportation, agriculture, and healthcare/elder care — will change this decade.

Before I dive into each of these industries, it’s important I mention that it’s the explosion of sensors that is fundamentally enabling much of what I describe below.

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