Electric Vehicles & Artificial Intelligence
Electric vehicles are at the forefront of tackling climate change. Many car companies have already started the transformation. This changing industry will have new technology popping up around every corner! Companies such as Jaguar have announced they will only be producing electric cars from 2025. Volvo is soon to follow by 2030. It’s exciting to discover just how different the cars on our roads will be in just a decade! Driverless vehicles may have seemed impossible but today, it’s very much a reality! Artificial Intelligence has already begun enhancing the features of electric cars, but just how does it work?
Tesla is the biggest name in the electric vehicle industry. So it’s no surprise that Elon Musk has decided to start working on his own Artificial Intelligence hardware. It’s also reassuring to know he is CEO of OpenAI an organization that produces research into the safety of AI. One of the biggest ways Artificial Intelligence is being used in the electric vehicle industry is self-driving cars. At the moment Elon Musk claims Tesla is nearing the finish line and their vehicles will soon be completely autonomous. On Tesla’s website, they state “We develop and deploy autonomy at scale. We believe that an approach based on advanced AI for vision and planning, supported by efficient use of interference software is the only way to achieve a general solution of full-self driving”.
Artificial Intelligence doesn’t just mean a self-driving car. Google, for instance, is using Artificial Intelligence to plan car journeys that will locate available charging stations. Electric vehicles are becoming more popular so the need for charging stations has also increased. Google’s version of Artificial Intelligence is trying to combat this. Whilst they can’t just magic new stations, it is a way to save time.
Another way Tesla is planning to use Artificial Intelligence is by using AI integrated chips. These will help cars weave their way through freeways and even traffic! Whilst Tesla hasn’t managed to deliver on their promise of self-driving cars by the end of 2019, they certainly haven’t stopped following their vision.
Zoox has its own ideas for self-driving vehicles using AI. They want to develop a type of robotic rideshare taking customers from point A to point B. Could you imagine getting into your ride with no driver! Waymo however, is already giving out test drives of their autonomous vehicles in Phoenix! Their Artificial Intelligence detects pedestrians, cars, cyclists and other objects up to 300 yards away. It has 360-degree Perception Technology.
At Stanford University, William Chueh has been looking at other ways to develop the use of Artificial Intelligence. He has been looking at ways AI can increase the longevity of the electric vehicle. He is trying to do this by advancing the battery recharge, which in turn should enhance the battery’s lifespan.
Artificial Intelligence is still fairly new. There are constant ways AI is being advanced to better electric vehicles in the future. For now, most companies are firmly focused on using AI for self-driving electric vehicles. But there are still so many ways AI is being advanced and we can only speculate on what this may mean in the future.
