Autonomous Vehicles and their Policy Implications
1989: the year the Cold War ended, gas cost $0.97, the Tokyo Stock Market crashed, Microsoft Office was first released, and Toyota released it’s first luxury brand, Lexus1. The earth was graced by Taylor Swift, would-be Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe, and, how could we forget, the Little Mermaid2. And in November of 1989, a sci-fi film was released which would be the third highest grossing movie of the year and inspire and entertain for generations to come—Back to the Future Part II. Set in 1989, this film takes us to the “future” to 2015, where imagineers do in fact correctly predict Skype-like communication, biometric identification, and… flying, self-driving cars?3
Well, the future is here. While cars today may not fly, we are closer than ever to fully autonomous vehicles (AVs). Companies like Google, Mercedes-Benz, Delphi, Nissan, Audi, and Bosch have been testing AV technology since as early as 2009.4 The Google Car, alone, has already logged upwards of 1.8 million miles autonomously5 on the streets of California, Washington State, Arizona, and Texas. As of March 2016, there have only been 17 minor accidents, most of which have been the result of being rear-ended by another vehicle, and with only one as a result of the self-driving …show more content…
The technologies which enable this continuum and trend toward complete automation include adaptive cruise control (ACC), lane-minding technology, on-board navigation, crash warning systems, electronic stability control, and self-parking mechanisms, all of which are now commercially available. To better comprehend this continuum, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has delineated levels of automation as
1989: the year the Cold War ended, gas cost $0.97, the Tokyo Stock Market crashed, Microsoft Office was first released, and Toyota released it’s first luxury brand, Lexus1. The earth was graced by Taylor Swift, would-be Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe, and, how could we forget, the Little Mermaid2. And in November of 1989, a sci-fi film was released which would be the third highest grossing movie of the year and inspire and entertain for generations to come—Back to the Future Part II. Set in 1989, this film takes us to the “future” to 2015, where imagineers do in fact correctly predict Skype-like communication, biometric identification, and… flying, self-driving cars?3
Well, the future is here. While cars today may not fly, we are closer than ever to fully autonomous vehicles (AVs). Companies like Google, Mercedes-Benz, Delphi, Nissan, Audi, and Bosch have been testing AV technology since as early as 2009.4 The Google Car, alone, has already logged upwards of 1.8 million miles autonomously5 on the streets of California, Washington State, Arizona, and Texas. As of March 2016, there have only been 17 minor accidents, most of which have been the result of being rear-ended by another vehicle, and with only one as a result of the self-driving …show more content…
The technologies which enable this continuum and trend toward complete automation include adaptive cruise control (ACC), lane-minding technology, on-board navigation, crash warning systems, electronic stability control, and self-parking mechanisms, all of which are now commercially available. To better comprehend this continuum, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has delineated levels of automation as