Audi cancels L3 autonomous driving R&D project and focuses on L2 and L4 autonomous driving technologies

Recently, it was learned from informed sources that Audi officially canceled its L3 autonomous driving research and development project at the end of 2019 and instead turned hundreds of employees in the team to the research and development of L2 and L4 autonomous driving technology.

Employees of Audi China said that the core reason for the cancellation of the L3 project is that the release of regulations is nowhere in sight.

Several industry insiders familiar with the project said that the core reason for the cancellation is that the "takeover" paradox of L3 autonomous driving cannot be resolved. Compared with L2 and L4 autonomous driving, L2 and L4 have very clear definitions of rights and responsibilities. The driving right of L2 is in the hands of the driver, and the responsible party is the person. The driving right of L4 is in the hands of the system, and the responsibility lies with the vehicle. As a conditional autonomous driving, the L3 autonomous driving system has the ability to drive autonomously. When it requests manual intervention, the driver must take over the driving task. In this way, if an accident occurs during the takeover process, it is difficult to define rights and responsibilities.

According to reports, people familiar with the project revealed that as of the end of 2018, Audi had been developing the L3 autonomous driving project for at least five years, with thousands of R&D personnel participating in the project and a cumulative investment of more than 1 billion euros (about 7.7 billion yuan).