Commercialization of Autonomous Vehicles and Related Challenges

Autonomous or self-driving vehicles are endowed with perception capabilities through sensors and cameras. In general, LiDAR and cameras are the two main categories of technological solutions for enabling perception capabilities. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in the United States has proposed a classification system for automated driving, comprising a total of six levels from L0 to L5. In particular, L3 marks a significant threshold. Under specific conditions, drivers of vehicles equipped with L3~L5 solutions can temporarily keep their hands away from the steering wheel due to the support from the automated driving system (ADS).

L3 functionality allows for emergency control to be quickly handed back to the driver when needed, so there still must be a person ready to take over the driving task in the driver's seat. Nevertheless, L3 remains an important milestone in the progress towards fully automated driving. The adoption of automated driving technologies extends beyond improving traffic efficiency and reducing carbon emissions; the core purpose of adopting these technologies is to reduce traffic accidents caused by human errors, thereby improving safety. Automated driving technologies can contribute to the optimization of traffic flows in smart cities. Furthermore, as automated driving advances from L3 to L4, the landscape of the transportation sector, along with the business models of transport operators, will gradually change.