NEWS
14 AUGUST 2019 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 17
Bold look for new i
HYUNDAI WILL PULL the
covers off the third-generation
i10 next month – the first all-
new city car to be launched in
Europe since 2017.
It will make its public debut
at the Frankfurt motor show
before going on sale early next
year, but the new A-segment
model has been previewed in a
sketch that shows a dramatic
styling rethink.
Although it features the
exaggerated proportions
typical of concept drawings,
the sketch previews the
company’s new grille, with
LED running lights integrated
into it, alongside a more
aggressive stance and an
X-shaped C-pillar.
Hyundai says the new i10 has
been designed, developed and
built in Europe and claims it will
feature “new connected car
and safety features”.
It’s expected to share its
platform and mechanicals with
the latest Kia Picanto – the
m o st r e ce nt c i t y c a r to co m e to
market as car makers struggle
to make money in the segment.
The Renault Twingo,
Vauxhall Viva, Toyota Aygo
and Volkswagen Up are all
models that have either been
dropped from the UK or are
unlikely to be replaced.
Third-gen i10 will
feature Hyundai’s
new-look grille
NEVER MIND WHEN, can self-driving
cars ever even work at all? That’s probably
the question in the minds of most people.
But to work, fully autonomous cars will
require the invention of a machine that has
the cognitive abilities of a human.
The building block of a human nervous
system is a neuron and millions of them
form a neural network in the body’s central
nervous system. To make autonomous cars
a reality, computer scientists need to create
artifi cial neural networks (ANNs) that cando the same job as a human’s biological
neural network.
So assuming that really is achievable, the
other thing an autonomous car needs is the
ability to see, and this is where opinions
in the industry are split. Until recently,
conventional wisdom had it that as well as
the cameras, radars and ultrasonic sensors
cars already have for cruise control and
advanced driver assistance systems, lidar
(light detection and ranging) is essential.
Lidar is like high-defi nition radar, using
laser light instead of radio waves to scan a
scene and create an accurate HD image of it.
One stumbling block has been the high
cost of lidar sensors, which only two years
ago cost more than £60,000. Lower-cost
versions on the way should bring the price
down to around £4000 but that’s still a
lot for a single component. Not everyone
believes lidar is even necessary or desirable,
though, and both Tesla and research
scientists at Cornell University have
independently arrived at that conclusion.
Cornell found that processing by
artifi cially intelligent (AI) computers candistort camera images viewed from the
front. But by changing the perspective in
the software to more of a bird’s-eye view,
scientists were able to achieve a similar
positioning accuracy to lidar using stereo
cameras costing a few pounds, placed either
side of the windscreen.
Tesla reasons that no human is equipped
with laser projectors for eyes and that the
secret lies in better understanding the
way neural networks identify objects and
how to teach them. Whereas a human can
identify an object from a single image at a
50 TRILLION OPS PER SECOND
glance, what the
computer sees is a
matrix of numbers
identifying
the location and
brightness of each pixel
in an image.
Because of that, the neural network needs
thousands of images to learn the identity
of an object, each one labelled to identify
it in any situation. Tesla says no chip has
yet been produced specifi cally with neuralnetworking and autonomous driving in
mind, so it has spent the past three years
designing one. The new computer can be
retro-fi tted and has been incorporated in
new Teslas since March 2019. The Tesla
fl eet is already gathering the hundreds of
thousands of images needed to train the
neural network ‘brains’ in ‘shadow mode’
but without autonomous functions being
t u r ne d on at t h i s s t a ge. Te sl a b o s s E lon
Musk expects to have a complete suite of
self-driving software features installed in
its cars this year and working robotaxis
under test in 2020.
Tesla boffins say a self-driving car needs
a neural networking computer capable
of performing a minimum of 50 trillion
operations per second (50 TOPS). By
comparison, a human brain can manage
about 10 TOPS. The new Tesla computer
co n su m e s n o m o r e th a n 1 0 0 W of p owe r s o i t
could be retrofitted. Bosch and NVIDIA are
developing a similar ‘brain’ for autonomous
cars ready for 2020. It’s called the Bosch AI
self-driving computer.
WHY BOFFINS ARE TRYING TO
MAKE CARS THINK LIKE HUMANS
Tesla
developed
its own processor
specifically for
neural networking and
autonomous driving. It’s
called the Full Self-
Driving Computer
(FSD).
UNDER
THE SKIN
JESSE CROSSE
VW’S ELECTRIC SUV NEARS DEBUT
Volkswagen will show a near-
production version of the ID Crozz
at the Frankfurt motor show next
m o nt h. I t w i l l b e d i s p l a ye d i n t h e
same colour camo wrap as that
seen so far on the ID 3. VW sales and
marketing boss Jürgen Stackmann
claims the firm has “fulfilled all
objectives” with pre-orders for
the ID 3, with more than 90% of
cars now reserved.
I D Cr ozz i s l i ke l y to b e c a l l e d I D 4 o r I D 5 i n p r o d u c t i o n fo r m
SALES OF NEW EVs REACH ALL-TIME HIGH IN UK