"Current Autonomous Driving Technology at 4-Inning Level... 10-15 Years Needed for Full Autonomous Driving Commercialization"

Maha Ashur, MetaWave CEO: "Government and Local Government Support and Infrastructure Development Could Accelerate Progress"

[Asia Economy Jeju=Reporter Yu Je-hoon] It is predicted that it will take another 10 to 15 years for fully autonomous driving technology with minimal human intervention to be commercialized. To accelerate this, support at the government and local government levels, as well as legal and institutional improvements, are essential.

Maha Achour, CEO of Metawave, stated on the morning of the 8th at the Jeju International Convention Center (ICC Jeju) during the IEVE-Silicon Valley special session hosted by the International Electric Vehicle Expo (IEVE) organizing committee, "The current level of technology can be compared to the 4th inning in baseball. It has been a long game so far, and it will continue to be so," expressing this view.

Metawave is a U.S.-based radar and artificial intelligence (AI) specialized startup, which received investments from global automakers including Hyundai Motor Group in 2018. CEO Maha was also selected as one of Forbes' 50 top women entrepreneurs in the U.S.

CEO Maha first pointed out that there is much exaggeration regarding current autonomous driving technology. He said, "Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, somewhat exaggerates the current level of technology," and emphasized, "Fully autonomous driving technology is not possible with camera-based advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) alone. For safety, it is necessary to equip high-performance radar and integrate and control it through software."

Regarding the time required for the commercialization of fully autonomous driving technology, he explained, "For fully autonomous vehicles to be commercialized, mapping of various types of roads such as highways and national roads must be completed, and consumer trust must be gained. However, if governments and local authorities continue to support by establishing autonomous driving operation environments in specific areas and if various communication infrastructures are in place, the construction speed can be accelerated."

The opinions of other experts attending the special session were similar. Ali Izadi, Head of Research for Asia-Pacific at BloombergNEF, pointed out, "There are many considerations from a regulatory perspective. Major markets are quickly reviewing regulations, but there is no unified approach." Professor Choi Woong-cheol of Kookmin University added, "Since it is expected to take considerable time for individually developed technologies to be integrated, a long-term timetable related to fully autonomous driving should be established."

Meanwhile, there was also an observation that the application of fully autonomous driving technology would be easier in fields such as Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and electric ships. Since there are fewer obstacles like in the case of Gongro, faster technology adoption is possible. Kang Young-kwon, Chairman of Edison Motors, said, "For example, transport drones carrying containers could be developed and sold within 3 to 5 years."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.