Ford has ended its campaign seeking legal approval to test level four autonomous vehicles (AVs) on public roads in the US, citing the long-term unprofitability of the technology.
A letter sent by the firm to the US’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requests the withdrawal of a petition to allow it to test up to 2500 AVs per year.
The decision to withdraw from testing fully autonomous vehicles was made after Ford closed its Argo AI venture.
The letter said: “As evidenced by the shutdown of our ADS partner Argo AI, we believe the road to fully autonomous vehicles, at scale, with a profitable business model, will be a long one.”
Ford will instead concentrate its resources on “nearer-term” level two-plus and level three technologies – which do not require a legal exemption to test on public roads in the US.
The news comes after Horiba Mira managing director Declan Allen exclusively told Autocar that the large projects developing fully autonomous vehicles will “probably get kicked down the road a bit”.
Allen added: “There’s quite a large development on the driver assistance systems and moving to level two-plus and level three systems.”
But what are level two-plus – or simply ‘L2+’ – systems, and what do their introduction mean for the car industry?
L2, for level two, is at least reasonably widely known for indicating the stage of autonomy on a scale of zero to five as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Level three is when the car takes control, however brief, so L2 is the highest level of assisted driving before you hit true autonomy.
But then came L2+. It’s not an SAE accepted term, but one that has been increasingly touted by car makers in recent months as they temper their once bold predictions of full autonomy and start becoming realistic about what’s possible within a medium-term timeframe. VW Group boss Oliver Blume even referred to L2++ in a recent investor call, further muddying the waters.
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