The world is witnessing tremendous developments in the automotive industry and in facilitating transportation, thanks to the introduction of artificial intelligence to automate driving tasks. This has resulted in what are now known as autonomous vehicles, characterized by their ability to sense their surroundings and move autonomously. These vehicles are expected to contribute to alleviating traffic congestion, improving quality of life, and achieving high levels of safety.
Many countries have recently shown growing interest in autonomous vehicles, prompting them to enhance their readiness for adopting and using these vehicles by establishing legislative policies for testing and use, investing in developing their infrastructure, and customizing testing methods.
This report aims to shed light on autonomous vehicles, their benefits, risks, and use cases. It also reviews the efforts of prominent countries to prepare for their adoption, in addition to highlighting the challenges facing their development and implementation. The report also presents future forecasts for the widespread use of autonomous vehicles, highlighting the most important factors affecting their rapid spread. The report concludes that autonomous vehicles are still being tested and experimented with in a number of countries, and that their levels of use and readiness to adopt them vary depending on their capabilities and efforts in policies and legislation, as well as their capabilities in infrastructure, technology, and innovation, in addition to consumer acceptance. According to the KPMG Autonomous Vehicle Readiness Index 2020, Singapore ranked first, primarily due to its excellence in policies, legislation, and road quality. The Netherlands ranked first, due to its progress in the infrastructure pillar, particularly the spread of electric vehicle charging stations. Norway followed, achieving the highest rates in average share of electric vehicles. The United States ranked fourth, due to its progress in supporting technology, innovation, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things. Finland and Sweden ranked fifth and sixth, respectively, for their excellence in increasing societal use and reliance on technology. South Korea ranked seventh, advancing in 4G coverage. The United Arab Emirates ranked eighth, excelling in its readiness to transform its technical infrastructure to accommodate autonomous vehicles. The United Kingdom ranked ninth, excelling in cybersecurity. Denmark ranked tenth, notable for its proximity to public testing areas for autonomous vehicles.
Despite extensive efforts to develop autonomous vehicles and prepare for their adoption, these efforts face multiple challenges in legislative, technical, societal, and planning aspects. These challenges pose a stumbling block to the advancement of autonomous vehicle technology and prevent full readiness for widespread adoption and use. If autonomous vehicles see significant progress in production, accelerate testing processes, and adopt robust policies, they are expected to be safe and reliable by 2025 and could be commercially available in several regions by 2030. Autonomous vehicles are also likely to account for half of new sales after 2045 and could be available to everyone by 2050.
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