Development of Fully Autonomous Vehicles as Complex as Manned Mission to Mars: VW

Fully autonomous vehicles will take at least another five years to perfect, with the cost and complexity of rolling out the technology globally serving to undermine the business case, Volkswagen's head of commercial vehicles said. Autonomous cars require high-tech infrastructure, hugely expensive lidar and radar systems, as well as pricey deals with cloud computing and mapping providers, VW's Thomas Sedran told Reuters on the sidelines of the Geneva motor show [on March 5]. "It will take another five years to develop the technology to achieve higher levels of autonomy. Can you see a business case which justifies these overheads for this period of time? It's just too expensive," Sedran said.