Auto show set to open in Detroit

By TYREL LINKHORN

Toledo Blade

DETROIT

The upcoming North American International Auto Show won’t feature any truly autonomous vehicles, but many of the cars and trucks being rolled out this week will include advanced control systems that are paving the way toward a driverless future.

Nearly every automaker already offers some form of adaptive cruise control, lane holding systems or forward collision avoidance that can slow or stop the car if the driver doesn’t brake.

While the Detroit auto show won’t focus on autonomous vehicles as last week’s Consumer Electronics Show did, there still will be important rollouts.

The show, open to the public Saturday at Cobo Center in downtown Detroit, is expected to have 750 new vehicles on display and more than 40 model debuts.

Volvo and Mercedes-Benz are prepared to unveil new luxury cars this week that promise to take a step forward in offering a wide range of semi-autonomous features. Volvo is even making the package standard on its new sedan.

Cadillac also is getting into the game. Officials say the company’s soon-to-launch CT6 sedan will offer hands-off highway driving models sometime next year.

While it’s difficult to say when cars will be able to ditch the driver altogether, these close-to-autonomous features are giving buyers a glimpse into where the industry is headed, said John Capp, General Motors Co. safety director.

“They’re seeing today the foundation of technology that’s going to allow us to do some of these things for tomorrow,” he said. “You don’t have to wait 20 years to be able to participate in this evolution of technology.”

Capp, one of the key people behind Cadillac’s Super Cruise system, said GM is deep in research with fully autonomous vehicles. A fleet of driverless Chevrolet Volts, for example, run around GM’s Warren, Mich., tech center, waiting to be summoned by a web app.

In the meantime, one of the most important parts for early semi-autonomous systems is making sure drivers know what the car can and can’t do.

“To do a feature like this today, we still need to have a driver that’s fully engaged and attentive and knows what’s going on around the vehicle,” Capp said.

Experts say full autonomy seems technically feasible within a few years, but a number of challenges remain, around the technology itself and the regulatory and legal environment. Just getting to the point of enabling hands-off driving at speed has been a long time coming.

“The auto industry is moving forward with the technology at a measured pace,” said Jack Nerad, Kelley Blue Book’s executive market analyst.

“Instead of plopping full-on autonomous cars before the public, the industry stance is to introduce electronic driving and safety aids that will build toward an autonomous future.”

That’s essentially what Volvo is doing with the S90.

Volvo has a small share of the U.S. market, but it has been investing heavily, pouring $11 billion into product development in recent years. The company once sold more than 100,000 cars in the United States but fell to just 56,000 in 2014. Last year, the Sweden-based, Chinese-owned company started turning that around, growing sales by nearly a quarter to 70,000 units.

The S90 is an important part of that turnaround strategy.

Premium sedans are also often where carmakers debut their new technology.

In the case of the S90, Volvo is showing an expanded and far more advanced version of its semi-autonomous Pilot Assist software.

Previously, Pilot Assist was an option on the new XC90 crossover as a sort of high-tech, adaptive cruise control that allowed the driver to sit back while the vehicle followed the movements of the car in front at speeds up to 30 miles per hour.

This second generation product allows the S90 to accelerate, brake, and steer at speeds up to 80 mph and without the need for a pace car. The system works as long as lane markings are clearly visible to the car’s cameras. It also comes standard.

“Making semi-autonomous features standard in the S90 symbolizes Volvo’s commitment to autonomous driving and our Vision 2020,” Volvo USA President Lex Kerssemakers said last week. “The S90 will be the first vehicle to offer this semi-autonomous technology as standard.”

IHS Inc. is forecasting global sales of fully autonomous or driverless cars will reach 250,000 in 2025. By 2035, IHS is forecasting global sales of 12 million, which would represent about 10 percent of the anticipated global car market.