A Tata car that can drive itself? Yes, that's happened. Tata Motors has been testing the self-driving Tata Hexa on the streets of Coventry in UK. The autonomous-driving Hexa was a part of a three-year project of Tata Motors' European Technical Centre.
The self-driving kit involved the collaboration of 15 partners. The Tata Hexa here is being used as the test vehicle, but this kit can be fitted on other vehicles too. Tata has tried it out on the electric version of the Tata Ace commercial vehicle and the Tiago as well.
Here's a video of Tata's self-driving Hexa on the streets.
Road congestion, air pollution and road safety, are acute concerns in India. We are likely to embrace connected, electric and shared technology sooner and therefore it is essential we remain at the forefront of these developments. Autonomy will be a consideration for the future in India. As the UK has already published a code of practice for testing autonomous vehicles safely and legally, it provides the ideal platform to enable us to challenge our self-driving vehicle capabilities.Rajendra Petkar, CTO, Tata Motors
Globally, a number of companies are testing out autonomous vehicles. The Volkswagen Group is developing autonomous driving cars in China in collaboration with SAIC. Tesla has already introduced Level 4 autonomous driving technology in its vehicles.
Uber and Volvo already have autonomous vehicles on the roads - one of which was involved in an infamous crash in March 2018.
Among tech companies, Google continues to test its autonomous cars through its Waymo division, while Apple too is believed to be testing a fleet of self-driving vehicles. There are some Indian startups that have developed self-driving vehicles, but Tata appears to be the first to take the tech to public roads so far.
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