Ford To Push For Full Autonomy As Engineers Start Napping In Prototypes

Ford is accelerating its plan to develop a fully-autonomous vehicle in 2021 after discovering that the engineers testing its semi-autonomous prototypes were nodding off behind the wheel.

Bloomberg has learnt from Ford’s product development chief, Raj Nair, that the automaker has been employing a whole host of methods to try and keep its engineers awake but that it has proven very difficult for them to maintain situational awareness.

Nair says that Ford has installed its prototypes with shaking steering wheels, vibrating seats, bells, buzzers and warning lights to rouse its engineers and even required the use of two engineers, one to monitor the other.

“These are trained engineers who are there to observe what’s happening. But it’s human nature that you start trusting the vehicle more and more and that you feel you don’t need to be paying attention,” Nair said.

With this in mind, Ford has made the decision to skip level 3 autonomy altogether and plans to migrate straight from level 2 to level 4, giving full control over to the vehicle.

In level 3, autonomous vehicles still fall back on the human driver for specific driving tasks but level 4 and level 5 allow the computers to do everything and gives no control to human passengers.

Those that believe full autonomy is the only answer assert that lesser semi-autonomous systems that require an inattentive human to avoid crashes in complex driving scenarios is dangerous.

According to Waymo chief executive John Krafcik who is working with Ford, “Level 3 may turn out to be a myth. Perhaps it’s just not worth doing.”