Electronomous 2019 the slow rise of autonomous cars

Electronomous, the international car tech, and mobility conference are now in its third year and surprisingly it is not held in America but in Killarney. The calibre of speakers was very impressive, including key people from Bell Helicopters, Bird, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Lyft, NVIDIA, Volvo and the Volkswagen Group.

One of the most interesting talks was given by Glenn Isbell the Vice President of Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Innovation at Bell Helicopter. Glenn spoke about the Bell Nexus which stole the show at this year’s CES in Las Vegas.

The Nexus is an air taxi that will hold 4 passengers and their luggage and is designed to be a quick and easy way to travel around cities. Glenn also mentioned the V-247 Vigilant which is aimed for the military market. It is designed for aerial reconnaissance but has the added bonus of being able to resupply troops in the field, which will be a lifesaver as there will be no need to worry about IED’s destroying transport convoys and killing personnel.

One of the hot topics on everybody’s lips was when will we be getting Level 5 autonomous cars? For those not familiar with autonomous vehicle’s, their autonomy is registered from Level 0 which means no autonomy to Level 5 which is fully autonomous. At the moment Level 2 cars are where we are at. Danny Shapiro the senior director of automotive at NVIDIA spoke about Level 2+ which Volvo plan to put in all their production cars by the end of the year. This will be done by utilising Nvidia’s Drive AGX Xavier computer as Volvo start planning for Level 4 autonomous vehicle’s which will be launched sometime in the 2020’s.

Another hot topic was alternative powertrains and Quentin Wilson the ex-Top Gear presenter who was also the host on the main stage wants a future where there is still a place for petrol powered cars. Quentin is a lover of classic cars and he envisages special B roads for petrol engine cars. On the last day of the conference, he had a fireside chat with the actor Michael Fassbender who was brought up in Killarney.

Michael is a petrol head and he was back in Killarney as he an ambassador and participant in the 2019 Cartell.ie Rally of the Lakes. Michael mentioned that he loves the sound of the car engines and the vibrations that you feel when racing and he feels that may be lost in electric cars. When asked by a member of the audience what the Rally of the Lakes will be like in 20 years’ time, Michael hopes the sounds and vibrations he loves still remains.

Of course, no car tech and mobility conference would be complete without scooters. Caroline Hazelhurst the Director of EMEA operations at Bird gave an interesting talk about Bird’s experiences as the worlds fastest growing startup, and the problems they face as a dockless scooter-share company. In an ideal world, electric scooters will be seen as a credible alternative to bicycles and will be very popular in big university campuses and certain parts of cities. I also got to try a scooter and talk to their retailer who had a stand at Electronomous.

For any petrolheads or those interested in the latest motor vehicle technology, Electronomous is the perfect conference for them. Where else can you hear from the relevant tech and car experts and in the idyllic surroundings of Killarney?