Israel: The Primary Market for Autonomous Vehicles
Car manufacturers are entering the market with self-driving cars by 2020
The car manufacturing industry is undergoing a significant transformation. The autonomous vehicle revolution will transfer the driving of cars from people to machines. Most car manufacturers are planning to enter the market with self-driving cars by 2020.
What is missing is a set of regulation on these autonomous vehicles. Some countries, most noticeably California, have already created supportive regulation for the experimental stages. However, there is no legal framework for the commercial operation of self-driving cars. Legislators will have to set the guidelines of manufacturing standards, insurance, licensing and traffic laws.
Self-driving cars have various advantages, they are expected to be safer and capable of shorten travel time by optimizing routes and avoid traffic congestion. Not to mention that travel expenses will decrease exponentially, consumers will in fact most likely carpool rather than privately owned cars.
As expected, the Israeli industry has taken part in the technology race in the field of self-driving vehicles and about 450 companies in Israel have been engaged in it.
To accelerate the development of the Israeli industry in auto-tech and in smart transportation however, Israel must set up a strict regulation together with physical infrastructures as try out locations of these new technologies. Israel wants to serve as primary market for this new transportation technologies.
For this reason, the Israeli government has launched a national program to boost smart transportation and encourage the integration of autonomous vehicles developments into Israeli transportation systems.
The Ministry of Transport has in fact opened a new highway exclusively for companies conducting trials with autonomous cars. The 531 Road has three lanes in each direction of 1.5 kilometer and is linked with Road 2 (the coastal highway) with Road 20 (the Ayalon highway) in the north of Herzliya. This road will not be opened to the general public for two months so that five companies will be able to conduct trials with self-driving cars.
Among the five companies which have accepted the invitation of the Ministry of Transport are Nexar, Mobileye and Argus Cyber Security. Nexar has developed a dashboard camera app connected to the cloud that provides warnings about danger. Mobileye, which has been recently acquired by Intel, is the leading supplier of software that enables Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving. Argus Cyber Security is trying out its solutions to protect vehicles from being hacked with advanced connectivity features.
In addition to the most known companies in the field, there are various emerging ones. One of them is i4drive. It develops advanced software-based technology that can be integrated into any vehicle regardless of make or model and upgrades them with driver safety and autonomous driving capabilities.
