Yahoo Finance Rolls-Royce Boss: Autonomy Can Wait
The 1 percent have a different perspective on many things, including, as it turns out, the idea of self-driving cars. While Rolls-Royce looks set to join other ultraluxury automakers in moving to powertrain electrification, it is considerably cooler toward the idea of autonomous vehicles. CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös said the company will probably skip the early, partial stages of robotic driving and wait for the arrival of full hands-off capability.
“As you know, we are part of BMW Group, and BMW is investing big money into autonomy,” he told us when we spoke to him about the new Cullinan. “For that reason, we are able to take that technology whenever it is ripe for our customers. It’s important to understand that not just many but all of our customers do have chauffeurs, if not permanently employed then somebody they can call and say, ‘Bring me to the opera tonight,’ or ‘Drive me and my friends to the restaurant.’ That is not a problem. And we will only bring autonomy into our cars if it is truly effortless.”
The problem with partial autonomy, as highlighted by Rolls-Royce’s head of global communications, Richard Carter, is that you still need to have a driver for the periods when the car can’t pilot itself: “You can’t be in the ridiculous situation of having a chauffeur who is coming along for the ride and is just sitting there waiting for the end of the motorway.”
Rolls-Royce clearly sees high-level autonomy as being part of its long-term future. The far-looking 103EX concept of 2016 was supposed to be capable of doing the “Home, James” thing all by itself. But-as with the drinks dispensed from the chilled cabinet in back-this is no time for half measures. “We are truly interested in autonomous driving,” Müller-Ötvös said, “but at a stage where it is truly effortless. It doesn’t make sense as some in-between solution. Our customers would not have patience for that.”
You Might Also Like
