Drivers Interested In Going For Autonomous Cars Only With Cheap Insurance Deals

By Arvind Arora
TMCnet Contributor

The world of automobiles is witnessing rapid transformation as a result of cutting edge developments being made in every aspect of the arena. Automation in driving is a yet another innovation that is being consistently emphasized upon by the market leaders.

According to a recent study conducted by CarInsurance.com, a website that enables people to compare different car insurance policies and buy the one that suits their requirements and budget constraints the best, every fifth driver would like to go for an automatically driven vehicle if a totally safe and secure car operated through a computer enters the market. Also, around 90 percent of the drivers would prefer to give it a thought if the automatically driven car comes along with a low cost insurance offer as a part of the deal, as most of the drivers still can’t get to trust technology to that level as yet, suggests the survey.

Usually known as ‘driverless cars’ or ‘autonomous cars,’ automatically computer-operated vehicles are futuristic concept vehicles that are existing in various stages of regular and consistent development, though still in quite initial phase as of now.

Automobile companies have begun incorporating a range of automated and intelligent features within their vehicles, which collectively make the entire driving experience much easier, safer and less stressful. Anti-lock brakes and electronic stability control are two of these features, accompanied by other ones such as distance-based cruise control that helps in maintaining safe gap between the vehicles automatically at highway speeds and a yet another that enables cars to parallel-park themselves. Earlier, Google (News - Alert) launched an experimental fleet of vehicles on California freeways, which has covered quite a long distance till date.

All that said and understood, a fully automated car that will cover entire journey on its own without requiring any human intervention or help at all, better known as a ‘Jetsons’ car can still take a few decades to emerge and carve out its niche within the market successfully.

A fully automated driverless car won’t emerge overnight, but will evolve in steps, adding a few bits to the big picture at a time, commented John Capp, director of global active safety electronics and innovation at General Motors (News - Alert) while explaining the most probable roadmap of the evolution of these vehicles to the Popular Mechanics magazine. While these cars are not going to replace humans in the short term, they will definitely help human beings in circumstances when they don’t want to drive the vehicles, such as during long commutes or traffic jams. Mercedes has already begun introducing Stop and Go Pilot features within its 2014 S class cars, which drives the car automatically during traffic jams and hands over the control to the driver as soon as the speed of the vehicle crosses 6 mph.

In August 2013, Nissan announced that it will launch fully autonomous vehicles or self-driving cars in the market by the year 2020.