The Volkswagen Passat CC was cruising at little over 60 km per hour on Interstate-75, when Chris decided to take his hands off the steering wheel. Looking at the long travelled and winding road ahead, my heart skipped a beat.

At that precise moment, the car’s computers kicked in and started steering it – turning it left, right or keeping it steady – as if a pair of invisible hands was on them. It also automatically accelerated and braked at the right time, oblivious to the other drivers who never noticed anything amiss.

Welcome to the era of autonomous cars, also called driverless cars or self-driving cars.

“The intention of building autonomous vehicles is to reduce fatalities…,” says Christopher L. Van Dan Elzen, Director, Machine Vision Systems at Magna Electronics, an operating unit of Canadian auto parts giant Magna International.

“In the US, police record about 6 million accidents every year. Self-driving cars can reduce that by up to 99 per cent,” says Van Dan Elzen, who has been working with radars, lasers and cameras since 1997.

A small camera (akin to a web cam) stuck on the coupe’s front windshield is its eyes, and the image is processed by Mobileye’s EyeQ chip, which helps in real-time visual recognition and scene interpretation. The car is controlled by an onboard automotive computer chip.

During the drive, Chris took his feet off the accelerator and brake pedals as the comfort coupe deftly negotiated an S-curve. The car’s automatic braking is set on a time-based distance (one- or two-second distance), while the car drives through the centre of the lane and maintains the speed and a safe distance from the truck ahead at all times.

Magna, which has been working on the Passat for the past six years, has also been working with General Motors and Honda cars on various models.

The Passat’s computer takes control only when it reaches speeds of 60 kmph. Below this speed, it has to be manually driven. The onboard computer alerts the driver with a beep sound when it takes control or hands it back to him.

Magna is also working on prototypes that can run from start to stop without driver assistance. However, it would be a while before these would be commercially available.

“We are looking at a time-frame of 2025-2030,” he said, adding while the costs would be determined by the manufacturer, “sufficient” data was not available to gauge fuel efficiency.

After a 20-minute drive, Van Dan Elzen takes the control and drives back to the Magna facility. I am a long way from home, but I feel safe in a self-driving car.

(The writer was in Detroit to cover the Battery Show at the invitation of a number of auto firms.)

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