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General | News
Australia leads
autonomously
In Australia, “purpose-built legislation” is being developed to allow an automated driving system (ADS) to drive more automated motor vehicles in place of a human.
National Transport Commission (NTC) Chief Executive Paul Retter says that a new national law expected to be in place by 2020, would bring certainty to manufacturers and operators that want to bring more automated vehicle technology to the country.
“Without a change to existing laws or new law, there would be no-one to hold responsible
for compliance with our road rules when an automated driving system is in control of a vehicle,” Mr Retter said.
According to Retter, the NTC believed a uniform national approach will not only help automated vehicle manufacturers and the public understand the legal framework they are operating in, but it would also speed up the introduction of automated vehicles in Australia.
Transport ministers agreed to a uniform approach across all states and territories to make sure that there is always a legal entity in charge of driving when an automated driving system is engaged. This is set out in the NTC Policy Paper entitled “Changing driving laws to support automated vehicles.”
The new legislation would be in place by 2020 in time for the anticipated commercial rollout of automated vehicles in Australia.
Ten-fold increase
in AEB braking
The latest market analysis by ANCAP has revealed a ten-fold increase in the standard fitment of autonomous emergency braking (AEB) in just over two years.
ANCAP has been tracking the availability status and market penetration of AEB across the Australian light vehicle market since December 2015 when just three percent of new vehicles sold offered the autonomous braking feature as standard. Today, that figure has increased to 31 percent.
Of the top 100 selling vehicles available at March 2018, 37 models representing 31 percent of the market offered AEB as standard while 35 models, representing 29 percent of the market did not offer AEB in any form.
Manufacturing performance up, but
not in engineering
Reflecting the changing face of manufacturing in Australia “Official data has confirmed this year’s strong performance for the manufacturing industry. We have already seen this in over 20 months of Ai Group’s Australian PMI, which is an accurate real-time indicator of activity in Australian manufacturing and a ‘leading indicator’ of these ABS numbers. The solid recovery in manufacturing output is positive news for this big employing sector and it reflects the confidence building across the economy,” Ai Group Chief Executive, Innes Willox said.
“This industrial growth has come despite the winding down in auto production over the past year. The industry’s performance reflects the changing face of manufacturing in Australia and especially the strengthening focus on innovation, exports and advanced manufacturing technologies.”
Manufacturing output has grown in three
of the last four quarters. The last time that manufacturing output expanded (in annual growth terms) for longer than 4 quarters was in 2006-07, prior to the long disruptions of the GFC. This latest recovery has taken manufacturing output volumes in Q1 2018 back to the same level as 2014 (just under $26bn). It remains well below the all-time peak of $30bn in 2008.
As of May 2018, it has shown expansion in 20 consecutive months, the longest run of continuous growth since 2005.
This recovery in 2017 and 2018 has been especially strong in the food and beverages sector.
Weaker growth and recovery rates have been evident for chemicals, metals and machinery and equipment. These sectors have been more directly affected by the reduction in activity resulting from the end of automotive assembly activity in Australia during 2017.
Their focus is now on other types of transport and engineering-related manufacturing, advanced manufacturing and specialist equipment, all of which are continuing to gain traction.
Five-year funding for ANCAP
The Federal Government has announced the continuation of funding for independent vehicle safety consumer organisation ANCAP for another five years.
The Government’s $6.64 million commitment to fund ANCAP for another
five years will assist ANCAP to continue testing and assessing new cars, providing information for consumers about vehicle safety and general advocacy about safety on Australia’s roads.
This renewed commitment sees Federal support of the ANCAP program continue until at least 2023.
ANCAP also hosted one of Euro NCAP’s vehicle safety assessment inspectors as part of its reciprocal test data sharing and protocol alignment.
Mr Simon Edmonds, a senior vehicle safety inspector attended ANCAP
www.saea.com.au
crash test laboratories in Sydney and Melbourne as part of a knowledge-sharing and development program in place as part of ANCAP and Euro NCAP’s 2018 harmonisation.
ANCAP assessment engineers will attend crash and driver assistance testing in the United Kingdom later this year
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