Driving Innovations (cont.)

Meanwhile, other automakers appear to be getting closer to systems that allow vehicles basically to drive themselves in certain situations. BMW, for instance, is testing vehicles that have a feature that it calls Traffic Jam Assistant. In creep-and-crawl traffic, the vehicle’s sensors take over the speed and steering. Traffic Jam Assistant even has the capability of bringing the vehicle to a full stop. The system can keep a vehicle in its lane at speeds of up to about 25 mph, BMW says. The driver only has to keep a hand on the wheel. But there’s no idea when BMW might bring this to market or how much extra that it would add to the cost of a vehicle.

Both BMW and VW are testing systems that can let vehicles drive themselves at up to 80 mph. In the case of VW, the technology is called Temporary Auto Pilot, to underscore that it’s for use only on open highways and it requires drivers to always monitor the vehicle and to be prepared to take control at any moment. Temporary Auto Pilot integrates several systems that are available in many vehicles—particularly in luxury models—such as adaptive cruise control, a lane-departure-warning system, cameras and GPS, which automatically displays any road’s speed limit.

By combining those features in one system, VW says, it can create a vehicle that not only will keep the vehicle well behind the one that’s in front of it, but it also will keep it centered in the lane even through curves. The system also knows how to follow speed limits or overtake slower vehicles.

General Motors says that it will develop partially-autonomous vehicles within the next 5 years. Leading up to that is the development of a crash-avoidance system that relies in part on vehicle-to vehicle communication systems to gather information about other vehicles to avoid potential hazards. But automobile-industry experts say the first such semiautonomous driving systems won’t be available in vehicles until at least the end of this decade. And it could be sometime in the late 2020s when the first full-fledged driverless vehicles arrive. In other words, don’t throw your driving gloves away anytime soon.

Chris Woodyard is the automotive reporter for USA Today. He has written about the automobile industry for 6 years.