Disney To Test Self-Driving Shuttles Bringing A High Profile Name To The Burgeoning Industry

Forget Alphabet’s Google (GOOG), Uber, Apple (AAPL) and Tesla (TSLA). It may be Walt Disney (DIS) that wins the race for autonomous cars, or in this case, shuttles.

At a time when most technology companies are looking to get into the self-driving automotive market, the entertainment giant is gearing up to test a fleet of self-driving shuttles for its theme parks. Disney is reportedly in talks with Local Motors, a Phoenix based maker of autonomous shuttles and Navya, a competitor based in Paris to create the shuttles to cart theme park goers through its massive parking lots and parks. Once Disney inks a deal with one or both of the autonomous shuttle manufactures it’s expected to start a pilot program later in 2017, reported the Los Angeles Times, citing unnamed sources. The pilot will focus on transporting employees and if it goes well driverless shuttles could begin carting visitors to and fro in 2018.

While Disney isn’t at the forefront of any of the technology behind driverless cars if the pilot and full roll out come to fruition it will mark the highest profile company to get involved in self-driving cars. Sure Google, Uber, Apple and Tesla are all at different stages of testing a self-driving car, a wide scale commercial roll out is months if not years away. Disney will also bring credibility to the market given its shuttles will be the first exposure to driverless transportation for countless consumers both in the U.S. and internationally.

Disney’s Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida is the perfect location to test the driverless shuttles given the massive resort complex includes several theme parks, hotels, restaurants and entertainment covering vast amounts of Orlando and require hundreds of buses, boats parking lot trams and monorails to get visitors and employees around. The shuttles aren’t expected to go fast and will likely elicit yawns from riders, but they will validate the market and build a level of comfort among consumers. Confidence in the capabilities of driverless cars was shaken last summer when Tesla announced a driver in Williston, Florida died after putting his Tesla Model S in autopilot mode while on a highway. The car’s sensors, due to the glaring sunlight, failed to spot a white 18-wheel truck and trailer crossing the highway. The Tesla Model S tried to drive at its full speed under the trailer. In a blog post at the time Tesla said “this is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles.”

Disney is the most high profile company to gear up to pilot driverless vehicles, but it’s not the only one. Earlier this week Samsung Electronics, the South Korean consumer electronics company known more for its Galaxy line of smartphones got the nod from the South Korean government to begin testing driverless cars on the streets of South Korea. Samsung isn’t manufacturing the autonomous vehicle nor does it have plans to do so but it is providing sensors, cameras and artificial intelligence technology for the vehicle. Samsung is the first technology company in South Korea to receive permission to test self-driving vehicles. Previously the government in South Korea gave the green light for Hyundai and Kia and academic and research institutions to test driverless car technology. Chip competitor Intel (INTC) is also eyeing the market in a big way in an effort to diversify beyond semiconductors found in computers and recently spent $15.3 billion to acquire Mobileye N.V. (MBLY), which makes computer vision technology for autonomous vehicles. Qualcomm (QCOM), the mobile chip maker, last year inked a deal to buy NXP Semiconductors of the Netherlands to get a bigger foothold in the self-driving car market. The $47 billion deal was the biggest in Qualcomm’s history and is still pending.  

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Gary Anderson 7 years ago Contributor's comment

Probably a good idea for shuttles, as shuttles don't have to merge into traffic. Self driving cars cannot merge into traffic, so Tesla's accident statistics are bogus as is its leader, Elon Musk. That, of course, is my personal opinion, but there are scientists who share this opinion.

Kurt Benson 7 years ago Member's comment

Gary, where's that link you shared with me previously about some of the problems with self driving cars?

Gary Anderson 7 years ago Contributor's comment

Hi Kurt, if the author doesn't mind, here is the article for you: www.talkmarkets.com/.../top-ten-reasons-self-driving-cars-are-useless She was clear in her current article, there are issues with self driving cars. But there are even more issues than most have imagined.

Kurt Benson 7 years ago Member's comment

I've begun to sour on the self driving car phenomenon. @[Gary Anderson](user:4798) had an article that was a real eye opener.