Is researching driverless tech the right road to take?

Our research institutes should rethink their work on autonomous vehicles ("Driverless trucks may be tested here soon"; Jan 10).

Established car makers are doing extensive research on this too, and are likely ahead of us in this race.

We do not have vehicle manufacturing capabilities, or even a facility to assemble vehicles.

The best we can hope for is to register a few patents for control or engineering designs, and sell them to a foreign manufacturer.

Perhaps the emphasis of the research is to develop a vehicle suited to our local road conditions. However, how different is our road environment from those overseas?

If such a vehicle is developed, will it have a market overseas?

Researchers must ask themselves if the payback is worth all the money and time put into developing the vehicle.

Kelvin Leong Moon Kit

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 12, 2017, with the headline Is researching driverless tech the right road to take?. Subscribe