Automated future littered with safety, legal issues

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C.—The coming autonomous vehicle revolution, in all its aspects including safety, testing and legal issues, was the major topic of the 33rd Clemson University Global Tire Industry Conference, held recently in Hilton Head.

Semi-automated vehicle safety features—such as tire pressure monitoring systems, automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning systems and blind spot warning systems—are the building blocks for autonomous vehicles, according to Eugene A. Petersen, director of standards and regulations at Consumer Reports.

Consumer demand for safety has driven the adaptation of new safety features, Petersen said. In a national CR survey of 1,097 drivers who said they were likely to buy a new car in the next two years, safety edged out cost as the most important buying factor, with reliability third, he said.

Cars with full or partial autonomous driving may well be commonplace in the next decade, according to Petersen. Yet this has created some concern at CR, he said.

"We feel people are going too far with these systems," he said. "We think there should be sensors to tell you when to put your hands back on the wheel."

Tires on autonomous vehicles will need not only TPMS but treadwear sensors, weather-related sensors, and ride and handling feedback, according to Petersen.

Tires will be tailored to vehicle dynamics, such as controlled speed limits and predictive steering rates, he said.

"I'm having a hard time understanding this, because I like driving," Petersen said.

James A. Popio, vice president of Smithers Rapra & Smithers Pira North America, agreed with most of Petersen's observations, but added one of his own.

"Getting to full autonomy is going to be tough," Popio said.

There are excellent reasons to adopt AV technology, according to Popio. It has the potential to reduce vehicle-related injuries and deaths by 50 to 90 percent, and it could drive cost savings by reducing traffic jams and promoting ride-sharing, he said.

On the other hand, AV systems could add $7,500 to the price of a car, according to Popio.

"How does AV work if only 10 percent of the cars on the road are automated?" he said. "And how long will it take to produce effective standards for AVs?"

There are no rules, no tests and even no signage for AVs, according to Popio.

The European Commission established its AV guidance program, GEAR 2030, in January 2016, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued its Federal Automated Vehicles Policy in September 2016, according to Popio. But there is no government-defined AV testing procedure anywhere in the world, he said.

Infrastructure also will be problematic, according to Popio. Billions of dollars will be needed to wire the nation's 4-million-plus miles of paved roads and 250,000 intersections, at a time when many states are struggling to fund basic highway maintenance, he said.

The tire of the future will play a crucial role in the adoption of AVs, according to Popio. It will be an invaluable data source, thanks to the coming proliferation of intelligent tire technologies, he said.

Tires will have not only tire pressure monitoring, but radio frequency identification and sensors for load detection, wear, self-inflation, traction, maintenance alert, fleet tire management and vehicle telematics, he said.

Yet intelligent tires pose difficulties for the tire aftermarket, according to Popio.

"These tires are as sophisticated as an iPhone," he said. "Are you going to throw them away?"

Imagine that your vehicle comes with an intelligent tire that has a worn tread, he said. How will the replacement be handled?

"If one tire fails, do you have to replace them all?" he said. "Technicians will have to be specifically trained to handle this."

Some of the biggest questions electronic communication raises for the future are legal ones, according to attorneys Chad Mowery and Joseph Ruscak from the Akron firm of Roetzel & Andress Partners.

"Most court cases are mostly discovery," Mowery said. "Over the past several years, the biggest heartburn hasn't come from depositions or written interrogatories, but requests for production of documents."

This, according to Mowery and Ruscak, is because of emails. Typically, people write emails much more casually than formal letters, which can cause enormous trouble when the email is a communication on a research topic.

In emails, people tend to exaggerate more or be more sarcastic than in formal letters, according to Mowery and Ruscak. The problem this can create in a courtroom, they said, is emphasized by a recently unveiled email from an auto maker, which referred to a model in development as a "deathtrap," "widowmaker" and "rolling sarcophagus."

"You should always try to keep your written communications as fact-based as possible," they said. "When using adjectives, you should choose ones that describe the actual happenings and not ones that attempt to exaggerate a situation or shock someone solely for the purpose of grabbing attention."