Mazda Taps the Brakes on Self-Driving Car Hype

Midmarket carmaker Mazda Motor Corp. wants nothing to do with a self-driving car. Instead, executives say they are shooting for an accommodation that makes their vehicles safer through electronics while still giving drivers a satisfactory degree of control.

That idea runs counter to the prevailing message from most carmakers today, which vigorously embraces a driverless future. In fact, Mazda executives say predictions of demands for a self-driving car are overblown.

“We do not believe that a car is just a transportation appliance,” said Tim Barnes, director of product planning for Mazda’s North American operations.

“There will always be those who want to drive a car, and we will continue to build cars that appeal to them,” Barnes said.

In practical terms, Japan-based Mazda aims to be a haven for people of upper-middle-class means and modestly sporty temperament.

“As a basic concept, all companies are looking for accident-free cities and society,” Barnes acknowledged. But, he added, “used properly, the technology in a [sub-autonomous] car can minimize traffic and increase safety for passengers.”

He said Mazda’s product philosophy is summed in a Japanese phrase, “jinbi ittai,” which translates as “oneness between horse and rider.” And if that reference feels confusingly poetic to Western ears, Mazda’s marketing tag line is “Celebrate driving.”

“We haven’t walked away from autonomous systems,” Barnes said. “In fact, we have the best and safest systems.”

Mazda mulls smart cars rather than a self-driving car

Mazda’s driver-assist package, i-Activesense, is at least as comprehensive as any of its competitors, he claimed.

The company has been working on assistive systems since 1991, and the automation debate has not yet been settled internally.

“We’re having lots discussions asking, What does ‘celebrate’ mean when you’re sitting in gridlock? Where is the joy of driving then?” he said.

Mazda has marketed concept cars that would toggle between autonomous and manual driving, and executives have said that that capability could surface around 2025.

But concept cars are almost always a way to put timid toes in unpredictable waters. One of Mazda’s more spectacular “toes” was 2013’s Rx-Vision, which provided a preview of that toggle feature.

With 2 percent market share in the U.S., “we can be flexible” with the automatic/manual split, Barnes said. The scale of their supply chains and production operations restricts larger automakers.

Cars for drivers

Two other carmakers have said no to full automation.

One is Porsche AG. Far more so than Mazda, Porsche’s brand is about capable, assertive, even macho, driving. Last month, executives announced that, essentially, there is no Porsche without drivers who are fully engaged in driving its vehicles.

As is the case with Mazda, Porsche is not banning all automation. Electronics have been keeping over-enthusiastic drivers out of the hospital for many years.

Indeed, the company is working on an on-demand active cruise-control system called InnoDrive. Due out by decade’s end, InnoDrive is expected to take over all controls except steering during turns, giving occupants exciting, relatively high-g turns.

Clearly, Porsche and Mazda executives are right about there being at least a medium-term market for their cars.

Readers of (and writers for) iconic U.S.-based motor-head magazine Car and Driver, for example, are reacting to the automation trend with the even-keeled nature of a hungry dog separated from a plump cat by an old screen door.

A driverless destiny?

And yet a number of studies indicate that these true-hearted enthusiasts will be greatly outnumbered in time and replaced by people who never caught the car bug — namely, young Western consumers and people of all stripes in developing economies.

In so many words, the diehards seem destined to die off.

The other manufacturer to wave off full automation is Toyota Motor Corp., but for a very different and very interesting reason.

Toyota executives say you cannot safely take humans out of the driving equation. They say that the chance that a computer will cause a catastrophic crash is greater than the chance that electronics will eliminate driver errors — the top cause of vehicle accidents.

For instance, there have been few realistic ways to weatherproof sensors. The same snow, ice, fog, and smoke that hamper human visibility behind the wheel are even harder for unintuitive computers.

Still, Toyota executives (and the scores of strategically silent executives at competing carmakers) appear to be unrealistically discounting ongoing advancements in machine intelligence, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and high-fidelity sensors. After all, Google Inc. is manufacturing self-driving pods with no steering wheel or pedals.