Intelligent Cars: Are We There Yet?

The articles in this special section focus on intelligent automobiles. The automotive industry is is experiencing disruptive changes at all levels—from design, and production, to community and business models. A previously rigid and very closed business environment is forced to open and embrace new methods to survive. In particular, it has become clear that a previously strongly deterministic approach has to be replaced with flexible adaptive approaches. This opened a path to new methods, which are reportedly necessary to bring the industry to the ultimate goal—driverless vehicles in any driving condition. The artificial intelligence (AI) has a significant role in this development, but it has not reached the full potential yet due to rigorous requirements that automotive-grade outputs need to satisfy. Nevertheless, an access to a paramount source of data has pushed AI methods to front rows, while all other processing methods are grouped in the “pre-AI era,” or even labeled as “vintage methods.”