Self-driving level 4
Granted; they are somewhat in between cars and public transport, but when it comes to autonomous capabilities they are certainly interesting for the car world: self-driving pods. The German Holon and car industry giant ZF park two newcomers on the exhibition floor of CES.
Meet the Holon Mover and ZF’s new – and otherwise unnamed – autonomous pod. Both are designed to carry up to 15 and 22 people respectively without the use of a driver. The Holon has ten seats, the ZF has fifteen. For ZF it is not the first rudderless van the company has designed, but where the previous one could only drive on separate lanes, this new one can blend in with the rest of the traffic. He has to do this on a large scale, because ZF is simultaneously presenting its new collaboration with Beep, an American provider of mobility services. Several thousand copies of the new ZFs should be driving around in the US in the coming years.
The car/bus/pod uses a 100-kWh battery pack and can travel up to 130 km in busy city traffic. Initially it can reach a maximum of 40 kilometers per hour, later it must be more than 80 kilometers per hour. As far as the specifications are concerned, it becomes much less concrete with the Mover. Holon therefore has no stated intentions for deploying the Mover. However, the company is proud of the impressive amount of technology on board the device (nine LiDARs, six radars, eleven cameras) and its good accessibility for people with a physical disability. The ZF is also equipped with this. You will certainly encounter it in real life sooner than the Holon, we bet. Let’s wait and see how the (European or American) regulations for autonomous vehicles develop further.
The fun-loving Holon Mover seems to be deeper into the concept stage than ZF’s already pretty deployable-looking pod.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl