1. DCU Business School
Article &Assignment Submission
Student Name(s): Tamanna Nazneen Rahman
Student Number(s): 59100397
Programme: MSBM1 - MSc in Management (Business)
Project Title:
Product attributions: Driverless or autonomous cars
Module code: MT 574 Technology Management
Lecturer: Des McLaughlin
Project Due Date: 16/06/2014
Declaration
I the undersigned declare that the project material, which I now submit, is
my own work. Any assistance received by way of borrowing from the
work of others has been cited and acknowledged within the work. I make
this declaration in the knowledge that a breach of the rules pertaining to
project submission may carry serious consequences.
I am aware that the project will not be accepted unless this form has been
handed in along with the project.
Signed: Tamanna NazneenRahman
Self driven cars (Product attribution):

2. In here three phases of self driven cars will be shown. I am starting from only 50
years ago of the topics past and will show the sheer advancement in less than a
century time. After that I will show three topics from lecture which are going to make
better understanding of what this product is.
Phase 1:
According to Randal, O.T (2009, p 189-192) In year 1939, General motors exhibited
a self governing car called Norman Bel Gedde's Futurama in New York. This was a
electric car which was radio controlled.
In 1953 Radio Corporation of America, built a car which was controlled by wires and
was further experimented on the real road outside the laboratory said by , Joseph C. I
(1960). In 1958 in collaboration with General motors, this was run on a four hundred
foot highway. Circuits and wires were put underneath the road. Car was charged by
velocities and impulses. This was equipped with radio transmitters and visual devices
which created automating car steering, speeding and braking. According to The Press
Courier (1960) Further works of General motors include 60's exhibiting electronic
cars , which could govern by itself if the driver wanted to take rest from driving.
Jurgen S (2009) projects about Robotic Van by Mercedes- Benz which was created by
Ernst Dickmanns along with his team from Munich, Germany reached a speed of
thirty nine miles per hour in an empty road and later on Eureka run seven and a half
million Project called Prometheus on self driven vehicle from late 80's till mid 90's.
In 1987 Darpa funded self driven automatic cars in USA collaborating with the
technologies with a few US universities. This project was called ALV( Autonomous
Land Vehicle) which involved latest technologies created in these universities such as
sensor based navigation, computer control which allowed the car to speed up to
nineteen miles p/h. The car successfully drove through slopes, rocks, fields on a speed
of nearly 2 miles p/h.

3. As showed in Darpa's archive online, in 2000 US Govt, launched demos of
autonomous cars, where the 3rd demo car could navigate avoiding rocks, trees, slopes.
This car had a real time control which let the car control its own steering, braking.
Phase 2: Here a few of the 2000s best autonomic cars showed.
Neal. D (2013) shows that, in 2013 R&D by Daimler created a Mercedes- Benz s
class with camera, driverless with radar which drove about one hundred kilometres in
Germany. Uses of stereo was big here which shown in a paper by Hamilton.K.O.
According to Nathan, A(2014) The 2014 s class Mercedes - Benz has autonomous
steering, braking, accident avoidance, lane maintaining, driver tiredness detection.
This car can speed up to 12o mph in inner-city streets and highway. By far Mercedes-
Benz S class is smoothly doing much better in the autonomous vehicle than Goole,
Audi. Mercedes compared this technology to the 'auto-pilot system' just like on
flights. With a price tag of $100,000 surely Mercedes is making autonomous cars a
priority.
Phase 3: The future of autonomous car.
Critics say that just like any other car, autonomous cars also create air pollutions. But
if the self driven car is hydrogen sell fuelled then it is going to be both manufacturers
and buyers choice. For transporting both passengers or any products, these cars are
going to be remotely controlled by the GPS or computer programmed by the US car
Stanley according to Stanford racing team. KPMG's size and the shapes of self driven
vehicles might change in the future. Consumers may purchase their next automatic
cars from high tech companies like Samsung, Google, Apple. The more the driving of
a car is removed from the mobility of the vehicle, the more competitions for more
innovations and investors for self driven cars. And by 2017 we will see flying cars as
and will be able to drive automatically if needed as per seen on YouTube. Googles
autonomous car has 300000 successful without any accidents miles in their bag. Other

4. brand icons like Volvo, BMW are planning to have such or even better auto driven
vehicle in by 2020.
Technology failure and innovation: Moreover the driverless car is there to make
peoples life easier. But no success comes without failure indeed and I will show a
little disadvantage about the driverless vehicle. According to Moore, G "I view this
years failure as next years opportunity to try again." Like the first Darpa challange of
2004 wasen't a success but the final one was and this proverv fits this. There has
been a few accidents while coming up with the latest car prototype. Still now the legal
law of the car is not fully developed or partially developed. The failure for self driven
cars will be driven cars. I have asked a lot of people if they want to have a self driven
car. Most of them replied that they will drive it for a while but they like driving cars
themselves. It is sort of like having control of something feeling. It is human
psychology I guess. But then again change in trend and choice might make this self
driven technology more interesting to consumers. But again there has to be a solution
for in any extreme case if the computer brakes down of the software malfunctions,
there should be a second computer or remote controller to avoid any casualty.
Moreover the argument of if there is an accident situation and who is to blame, debate
is going on. Is it the car owners fault, or is it the manufacturer company's fault or is
the programmer is to be blamed? Even the price is sky scrapping of this ultra modern
technology. So considering the causes of the failure of the technology to be launched
fully in the market, some aspects should be bared in mind. In a journal article by Big
Innovation (2012) was stated that the product will do good if there were fewer
accidents, better driving capability by the vehicle, but KPMG results from their
survey that consumers are not going to avail this product because they fear of
accidents, the fact that the car is not capable to ride really long. They also mentioned
that consumers might have gotten this product if there were option for driving and
auto driving feature as I have said above. But then again self driven cars may become
favourite if a big brand owns it which can provide more reliability by the power of its
brand image like Google according to driverless news (2014). I have said this in the
3rd phase of my product. Also if electric cars have short circuit or something, there
should be a technician to fix the wires instantly because it might turn dangerous. And
moreover the auto driven cars parts should be available everywhere to reduce
consumers stress.

5. Conclusion: Till today there hasn't been a serious accident caused by the driverless
technology but yet if its launched weather the insurance is going to be high or weather
the fuel or gas is going to be well available, is the vehicle really going to capture 9%
of the global auto sales of 2035 predictions going to be true? I guess we will have
wait and see. But our wait is not going to be too long. There has been self driven cars
performing well in the test and soon to be out after solving some of the aspects I have
mentioned in here out of many.

6. References
Phase 1:
1930 Electric car:
Randal, O.T (2009). Gridlock: why we're stuck in traffic and what to do about it. Cato Institute
Cars run by wires, and radio control:
Joseph, C.I. (1960). "ELECTRONIC ROADS CALLED PRACTICAL". nytimes.com.
"Reporter Rides Driverless Car". The Press-Courier. Google News Archive. 7 June 1960. Retrieved 21
July 2013. [Accessed 21st April, 2012]
Darpa 3 in 2000's : http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/ [Accessed 22nd April, 2014]
ALV:
Jurgen S (2009). "Prof. Schmidhuber's highlights of robot car history". Retrieved 15 July 2011.
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/robotcars.html [Accessed 21st April, 2014].
Phase 2:
Stereo approaches for automotive environment:
http://breckon.eu/toby/publications/papers/hamilton13stereo.pdf [Accessed 22 April, 2014]
Neal.D (27 September 2013). "Driverless Cars for the Road Ahead". Wall Street Journal. [Accessed
22nd April, 2014]
Nathan,I. (18 May 2013). "Mercedes-Benz shows off self-driving car technology in its new $100,000
S-Class". The Verge. [Retrieved 22nd April, 2014]
Phase 3
Hydrogen cell: http://environmental.lilithezine.com/Future-of-Self-Driving-Cars-and-Auto-
Insurance.html [Accessed 22nd April, 2014]
High Tech Companies in KPMG
https://www.kpmg.com/US/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/self-driving-cars-
are-we-ready.pdf [Accessed 22nd April, 2014]
Stanley: http://cs.stanford.edu/group/roadrunner/stanley.html [Accessed 22nd April, 2014]
Flying car available on youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8kHawwgiw [accessed 24th
June, 2014]
Big innovation Center (2012) BBC 2013. UK Government Paves Way for Driverless Cars. BBC
[Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-25230483 [Accessed 24th May 2014].

7. News (2014) Will self driven car be a success available at: http://www.driverlessnews.net/will-
driverless- cars-sell-the-market-for-self-driving-cars/ [Accessed 24th June 2014].