(Excerpt)
A coalition of 11 companies has published a 'white paper' called
'Safety First For Automated Driving' to act as a framework for the
development, testing, and validation of safe autonomous vehicles
(AVs). Aptiv, Audi, Baidu, BMW, Continental, Daimler, Fiat Chrysler
Automobiles, Here Technologies, Infineon, and Volkswagen were
involved in drafting the document, which comprises 146 pages. The
framework document establishes 12 guiding principles on how to
build, test, and operate a safe AV.
Significance: The member companies claim the
coalition is the "broadest representation across the industry to
date". It is imperative for companies to release such guidelines to
help the industry to deploy safe self-driving vehicles. This need
comes as an increasing number of start-ups are commercialising
self-driving vehicles and IHS Markit forecasts that, in 2021, about
51,000 vehicles sold globally will be AVs. There are many companies
which have released their AV safety reports, including Waymo, Ford,
General Motors, NVIDIA, Apple, and startups Zoox and Nuro.
