Here's When We'll See Driverless Cars With Level 5 Autonomy

Before you start driving, there's plenty of excitement around the idea of getting behind the wheel for the first time. When you get your driving license, driving is pretty fun for the first few years. With time, we get used to it, and it just becomes a regular part of day-to-day life. If possible, though, you could spruce it up by hiring a chauffeur (for those who can afford it) or get on board the numerous ride-sharing apps.

What if all this could change, though? What if you could cruise around in your ride without needing to drive it? Well, this is where autonomous driving enters. Driverless cars can give you the luxury of sitting back and letting your car get itself and you onboard from point A to B.

If you're lucky, you may have experienced it in some form with a vehicle like a Tesla. Currently, Tesla is a big advocate for autonomous driving and has even installed the feature in some of their cars, although what they offer is not level 5 autonomy.

Over the past few years, we have seen news reports on one or two Teslas getting into both minor and major accidents brought about by this feature. Does this mean that we should abolish the idea of autonomy in driving and go back to thinking about flying cars?

Well, to figure out the best course of action, let's take a closer look at level 5 autonomy and, ultimately, when it may arrive.

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Autonomous Driving Has Made Some Progress

Via: Steve Jurvetson, Flickr - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0

There were hopes that by around 2020, robotaxis would become a reality; such taxis would be a vehicle that could drop you off and pick you up as promised at a given location. However, given how much happened in 2020, it's no surprise that this hasn't exactly come to fruition yet.

Recently, developers working on autonomous driving technology announced that they are working to achieve what they call level 5 autonomy. This is because they have worked on and successfully launched prototypes with levels 2 and 3 autonomy in the past.

Many developers and car companies have been working on building vehicles with better-automated systems. They have promised to deliver everything from a revolution in driverless driving to uniformity with autonomy.

With the years rolling by, this technology is still very much marked with skepticism. It was predicted that in the past two decades, cars with level 2 autonomy would be allowed on the roads. Unlike what was available on the market then, level 2 driverless cars were to allow drivers to use autonomous driving on the highway for a predetermined range.

This has been seen to work in a number of cars with Tesla getting more recognition for it. So far, this has been the biggest leap in autonomous driving, but it's a far cry from level 5 autonomy.

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Here's When We'll Have Level 5 Autonomous Driving

Via: Metamworks, Shutterstock

Still working by predictions, it is hard to pinpoint when exactly level 5 autonomous cars will be available, but it seems closer and closer each day. However, the optimism to achieve Level 5 autonomy seems to have died down two years ago because the leap from level 3 to 5 is years away, about two decades or so, to give a timeframe.

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Hi-tech autonomous driving has faced plenty of criticism, particularly following the death of Elaine Herzberg back in 2018, which was caused by an autonomous car in testing. Another issue is the continuous stacking of Tesla accidents caused by low-level autonomous driving.

So, we're really just making educated guesses at this stage, but we'd imagine by around 2040 that if all things go according to plan (so perhaps 2050 if we're being even more realistic), we'll see level 5 driverless cars. But, if there's anything we've learned from predictions of previous decades, it's that predicting the future is not an easy task. But we can just wait in hope that just maybe autonomous driving will be the norm in around 25 years' time.