The Future of AV Hinges on More Than Tech - Connected World

Autonomous vehicles will fail to reach their full potential until ubiquitous and extremely reliable high-speed communications networks with very low latency are available. These networks are key to facilitating the realtime, instantaneous communications among vehicles and supporting infrastructure that must exist before vehicles can continuously and autonomously traverse city streets void of vigilant human oversight. The deployment of 5G (fifth generation) cellular technologies will represent a giant leap forward toward the use of autonomous vehicles for swift, efficient, and safe travel. However, the successful deployment of 5G (and subsequent) technologies depends upon the support of, and coordination among, federal, state, and local governments. Without this support and coordination, only the most lucrative markets will likely benefit from new technologies, and autonomous vehicles will remain technologically insular due to the scale of telecommunications investment required for the mass autonomous vehicle market.