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無人駕駛汽車何時才能上路

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It is becoming a car industry parlour game to predict when fully driverless cars will arrive on the roads.
預言完全無人駕駛的汽車將何時上路,正成爲汽車業的猜謎遊戲。

Audi chairman Rupert Stadler, whose company just topped a record 149mph with a fully self-driving RS7 sportback, says drivers will be able to take their hands off the wheel by 2016. A year later, Volvo will put 100 self-driving cars on the streets of Gothenburg, Sweden, with the aim of getting a fully autonomous vehicle on the market by 2020.
奧迪(Audi)的全自動駕駛RS7掀背轎跑車剛以149英里的時速刷新了紀錄。該公司董事長魯珀特•施塔德勒(Rupert Stadler)稱,到2016年駕駛員將能夠從手動操控汽車中解放出來。一年後,沃爾沃將向瑞典哥德堡(Gothenburg)的道路投放100輛自動駕駛汽車,目標是在2020年向市場推出完全自動駕駛的汽車。

Research group Gartner says that, by 2030, autonomous-enabled vehicles will make up about 25 per cent of passenger cars in mature markets. Consultancy Roland Berger says “wide adoption” could follow soon after, creating a market worth $60bn for carmakers, parts suppliers and tech companies.
研究公司高德納(Gartner)稱,到2030年,自動駕駛的汽車將在成熟市場的乘用車部分佔據約25%的份額。諮詢公司羅蘭貝格(Roland Berger)稱,“普及”可能在那之後很快到來,爲汽車製造商、零部件供應商及科技公司創造600億美元的市場。

無人駕駛汽車何時才能上路

But Stefano Aversa, co-president at the AlixPartners consultancy, says completely autonomous vehicles will never happen. “You cannot think of something that is fully autonomous in any situation – you would never be able to cover the infinite possibilities,” he says. “You have a pedestrian coming from your left, a bicycle on your right, a kid, a cat . . . or simply a speed bump or a hole in the ground.”
但是,諮詢公司艾睿鉑(AlixPartners)的聯席總裁斯特凡諾•阿維薩(Stefano Aversa)表示,完全自動駕駛的汽車永遠不可能出現。“你想不出在任何情況下都能完全自主操作的系統——你永遠不可能覆蓋無限的可能性,”他稱,“你左邊過來一名行人,右邊出現一輛自行車,一個小孩,一隻貓……或者只是一個減速帶或地上的一個坑。”

Self-driving cars have been heralded as the answer to problems from tedious roads and congestion to traffic accidents – more than 90 per cent of which are caused by human error. Numerous companies and cities have conducted trials. Google has clocked up almost 1m miles of testing on public roads in the US and four cities in the UK will host pilot projects early in 2015.
自動駕駛汽車被譽爲解決乏味駕駛、擁堵及交通事故(超過90%的事故由人爲錯誤導致)等問題的答案。很多公司和城市進行了試驗。谷歌(Google)在美國公共道路上完成了接近100萬英里的試車裏程,英國4座城市也將在2015年初啓動試點項目。

But technical and legal experts are increasingly concerned that the frenzied excitement surrounding the technology is obscuring the significant obstacles that lie in the way of the introduction of autonomous vehicles.
然而,技術和法律專家日益擔心,圍繞該項技術產生的狂熱興奮,掩蓋了引入自動駕駛汽車過程中的重大障礙。

For a start, driverless vehicles are only allowed on the road in four US states. They are also outlawed in Europe, though a recent amendment to the UN’s Vienna Convention on road traffic means 72 countries, including in Europe and the Americas, can implement rules to allow a car to drive alone for periods.
首先,美國只有4個州允許無人駕駛汽車上路。它們在歐洲也不被法律認可,儘管聯合國的《維也納道路交通公約》(Vienna Convention on Road Traffic)近期的一項修訂意味着,包括歐洲和美洲在內的72個國家可以實施法規,允許汽車在特定期間自主駕駛。

But road traffic laws still require the driver to be able to take control of the vehicle and override autonomous functions.
但是道路交通法律仍然要求司機有能力控制車輛,手動超越自動駕駛功能。

“That contradicts the visions and fantasies of those who promote autonomous cars,” says Stephan Appt, legal director in Germany for Pinsent Masons, the law firm.
“這與自動駕駛車輛倡導者的願景與幻想是牴觸的,”品誠梅森律師事務所(Pinsent Masons)德國法律總監斯蒂芬•愛普特(Stephan Appt)稱。

“To sleep, to watch movies – that would not be possible at the moment, because you are required always to remain in control.”
“開車時睡覺、看電影——現在不可能實現,因爲你必須一直保持對車輛的控制。”

According to Ruth Graham, a partner at UK law firm BLM, there are key areas of civil and product liability that would need to be addressed before driverless cars became possible.
英國BLM律師事務所的合夥人露絲•格雷厄姆(Ruth Graham)認爲,在無人駕駛汽車成爲可能前,需要解決民事及產品賠償責任一些關鍵領域的問題。

For instance, in an accident, insurers would need to assess whether the driver or the manufacturer was responsible for an accident. The incident would be complicated further if the crash involved the driver of a conventional, non-autonomous vehicle.
比如,在一起事故中,保險公司需要評估:是駕駛人還是製造商要對事故負責?如果這起事故還涉及傳統的非自動駕駛車輛,那將變得更復雜。

Even criminal liability will need to be looked at, Ms Graham says. “Would it still be an offence to be in your driverless car drunk or drugged?”
格雷厄姆稱,甚至刑事責任也需要得到考慮。“如果你醉酒或吸毒後坐在無人駕駛車輛內,是否仍構成違法行爲?”

One way of keeping the driver alert even in autonomous mode is to use eye and head-tracking smart sensors in the cabin, something being worked on by General Motors.
一種讓駕駛員保持警覺(甚至在自動駕駛狀態下)的辦法,是在車內應用追蹤眼睛和頭部動作的智能傳感器,通用汽車(General Motors)正在研究這項技術。

But this and other elements of autonomous vehicles – the ultimate connected cars – raise questions about data protection. Dashboard cameras, for instance, are banned in Germany, where the sharing of footage is seen as a violation of other road users’ privacy.
但是,這項技術以及自動駕駛車輛(超級互聯互通的汽車)的其它元素,引發了種種數據保護問題。舉個例子,儀表盤攝像頭在德國是被禁止的,在德國,分享道路行駛的視頻畫面構成對其他道路使用者隱私的侵犯。

Would drivers own the data produced by the vehicles, or would manufacturers? Could data collected by onboard “black boxes” be sold to insurers? “Who will be permitted to take the data out of the black box?” asks Mr Appt.
駕車者和製造商兩方面,誰擁有車輛生成的數據?由車載“黑匣子”收集的數據能否被出售給保險公司?愛普特問道,“誰將擁有從黑匣子讀取數據的權利?”

Technical experts also think mainstream manufacturers are further off developing the systems that would facilitate a fully autonomous car than the hype would suggest. Numerous so-called advanced driver assistance systems have already been incorporated in cars, such as automatic braking and adaptive cruise control – which adjusts speed according to the car in front.
技術專家也認爲,主流汽車製造商研發全自動汽車配套系統的進展,與炒作所暗示的相距甚遠。很多所謂的“高級駕駛員輔助系統”(ADAS)已被集成至新款汽車,例如自動剎車和自適應巡航控制(根據前方車輛的動態調整車速)。

But the leap to complete autonomy is a step beyond. Some industry insiders say the carmakers, though investing large amounts of capital, will have to buy in the technology or form joint ventures if they wish to achieve their lofty hopes for driverless cars.
但是,要實現自動駕駛這一飛躍,仍是當前難以企及的。一些業內人士認爲,雖然投入大量資金,但如果想實現無人駕駛汽車的遠大理想,汽車製造商將不得不購買技術或者組建合資企業。

The quality of the technology is crucial, because cars, as sophisticated computers, could be vulnerable to hackers.
技術質量至關重要,因爲汽車就像精密的計算機一樣,可能易於受到黑客攻擊。

Hugh Boyes, cyber security expert at the UK’s Institution of Engineering and Technology, says: “If we have a hacker community starting to target vehicles, you can imagine a fair amount of chaos. You just have to look at what happens in London when one vehicle breaks down on a main artery of the city.
英國工程技術學會(Institution of Engineering and Technology)的網絡安全專家休•博伊斯(Hugh Boyes)稱:“如果我們遇到一個黑客羣體開始攻擊汽車,你可以想象會有多麼混亂。你只要看看一輛汽車在倫敦的主要道路上拋錨時的情景。”

“So, if just one in 100, one in 1,000 is interfered with and ceases to operate as planned, we can expect mayhem.”
“因此,只要黑客能夠干擾百分之一或千分之一的車輛,使其發生故障,我們就會看到一團糟的局面。”