‘zPod’: India’s First Fully Autonomous Car by Minus Zero

Minus Zero, a self-driving startup supported by Marque angel investors, revealed its groundbreaking autonomous car that relies on a camera-sensor suite. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Bengaluru-based AI startup has introduced the groundbreaking innovation “zPod”, India’s pioneering self-driving car, marking a significant milestone in automotive technology.

The zPod unveiled at the Embassy TechVillage is capable of achieving Level 5 autonomy, the vehicle can navigate through any environmental and geographical challenges, as highlighted in a media release by the company.

Minus Zero: AI Tech For Autonomous Driving

Minus Zero stands as India’s first startup dedicated to developing cost-effective, fully autonomous automobiles. Founded in 2021 by Gagandeep Reehal and Gursimran Kalra, the startup focuses on enabling secure and scalable autonomous driving through their unique AI approach known as NIA (Nature Inspired AI) and True Vision Autonomy (TVA) technologies.

The start-up raised $1.7 million in seed funds from various investors which includes Chiratae Ventures, Snow Leopard Ventures, IIT Mandi, and other angel investors.

“With true vision autonomy coming to the fore, one can make autonomous vehicles a reality, solving major pain points of the mobility paradigm,” stated CEO Gagandeep Reehal at the launch.

Remarkable zPod Features

The zPod, an extraordinary innovation by Minus Zero, showcases an avant-garde design accentuated by a striking dual-tone black and grey color scheme. Equipped with six strategically positioned cameras, including front, back, and side-mounted ones, this advanced technology enables seamless obstacle detection and integration into existing vehicles.

Inside, the four-seater cabin boasts a unique configuration where all seats face one another, fostering a collaborative environment. The zPod operates solely on NAI, eliminating the need for manual control by a driver.

While Minus Zero acknowledges that the zPod serves as a technological showcase, their ultimate goal is to combat traffic congestion, reduce road accidents, and minimise associated human injuries.

The vehicle navigates real-world scenarios safely, ensuring reliability and a smooth user experience. zPod, powered by TVA, demonstrated real-world manoeuvres like overtaking, blind turns, and vehicle following without human supervision using only monocular cameras. The company believes TVA is the safest and most scalable approach to autonomous driving as it is vehicle agnostic and relies only on cameras as its sensor suite.

Gursimran Kalra, the COO of Minus Zero, emphasized the staggering wastage of fuel in Bengaluru’s traffic, estimating a staggering loss of $22 billion annually due to inefficiencies. The company claims that the concept can be adapted to any existing vehicle type. Furthermore, the autonomous driving tech can also be retrofitted to existing cars as long as they have an engine control module.

The TVA Concept

TVA is a new inflection point in the mobility industry. It can adapt to any use case and vehicle form factor, opening the doors for next-generation vehicles to harness the capability of full autonomy in the future. Through its innovations and AI breakthroughs, Minus Zero offers a blank canvas to all automotive OEMs, co-founder Gursimran Kalra said.

“Our concepts are a new revolution in the automotive industry. They allow automakers to explore new design possibilities for vehicles, currently limited by the constraints of a driver-led design. We aim to redefine mobility from a driver-centric hassle to a user-focused experiential design,” he added, as per an ET report.

Minus Zero envisions targeting a larger global mobility market with TVA. The company has identified near-term use cases through multiple trials and proof-of-concept for in-campus mobility and Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS). It has planned the expansion of trials to foreign markets with stable regulatory norms over the next two years, including public road trials. With such path breaking advancements and revolutionary concepts, India is poised to become the face of mobility worldwide, the company said.

Focussing On ‘Nature-Inspired AI’

Sharing their vision for the mobility industry, the founders released a whitepaper explaining their approach, dubbed NIA, which is a new way to build generalized autonomous agents inspired by a physics-aware vision and predictive decision-making capabilities of a human brain, making it efficient in handling real-world road scenarios, unlike traditional AI. The white paper, available for public viewing, shares the guiding principles for the safe and scalable adoption of truly AI-driven mobility.

Minus Zero: Not Going Into Production

The company has stated that it has no intention to put the zPod into production. The concept is just a showcase of the AI-based autonomous driving tech Minus Zero has developed. It says that the zPod could instead be an inspiration for automakers to try out non-driver-centric vehicle designs.

Industry Challenges Unveiled

Minus Zero sheds light on the daunting challenges faced by India’s autonomous vehicle industry. These hurdles include the high cost of hardware, the need for vast amounts of data, and the intricate task of navigating through complex traffic conditions and inadequate infrastructure. The conventional robotics approach, employed in AI development, often falters when confronted with unfamiliar scenarios. Furthermore, the exorbitant expenses associated with advanced on-vehicle hardware and data acquisition pose significant barriers, hindering the deployment-readiness of AI algorithms in real-world conditions.