What Will It Take To Make Automated Vehicles Legal In the US?

ashshy writes Tesla, Google, and many other companies are working on self-driving cars. When these autopilot systems become perfected and ubiquitous, the roads should be safer by orders of magnitude. So why doesn't Tesla CEO Elon Musk expect to reach that milestone until 2013 or so? Because the legal framework that supports American road rules is incredibly complex, and actually handled on a state-by-state basis. The Motley Fool explains which authorities Musk and his allies will have to convince before autopilot cars can hit the mainstream, and why the process will take another decade.

Comments

2013 or so?

[Anonymous Coward]

So Elon Musk is planning to revive the DeLorean?

Re:2013 or so?

[TheCreeep]

You hear that *whooosh*?
That's the sound of a 1.21 gigawatts joke travelling back in time going over your head.

What will it take?

[TechyImmigrant]

Automated vehicles that work?

Re:What will it take?

[CastrTroy]

And even for the ones that work, they don't work well enough to make most people pay the extra amount. None of the current systems are really meant to be completely automatic and lacking a driver. This means that businesses that want automated vehicles still need to pay somebody to sit behind the wheel, which is their greatest expense. Individuals who would like to use the system to free up some time also can't benefit because they would still have to be sitting in the driver's seat, paying attention to the road. For me, I will buy an automated car when it means I can sit and watch a movie or read a book and let my car drive me to work. And even then, only when the difference in price over a non-automated car is only a small amount. Because I'm still stuck in a car, and there's only so much I can do there. If I really want to get the most out of my time, I'll reduce the amount of time spent in the car, regardless of whether or not it's automated.

A lot of bribes

[nine-times]

Q: What Will It Take To Make Automated Vehicles Legal In the US?

A: A lot of bribes for people at various levels of government.

Wait, did I say "bribes"? Sorry, I meant "lobbying and campaign contributions". I have a hard time telling those things apart.

A working automated vehicle

[Hrrrg]

Call me when they can make an automated car that car drive in snowy conditions when no lane landmarks are visible. Or one that can turn into a lane of busy traffic that currently requires you to make eye contact with another driver to get them to slow down and let you in. Then we can worry about legalizing it. Legalization is trivial compared to the technical challenges. Personally, I suspect that there won't be a truly automated cars in my lifetime.

Re:For Starters

[MozeeToby]

$60 billion dollars are spent on truck driver salary's in the US. If automated vehicles achieve a 1% improvement in fuel economy (which is ludicrously conservative) you would save the economy another $45 billion in fuel costs. Not to mention the hundreds of millions of hours of wasted time, tens of thousands of deaths, and hundreds of thousands of injuries that could be possibly be prevented or at least reduced.

2013 is a typo, sorry 'bout that

[ashshy]

OS here. Sorry about the 2013 typo; Musk is aiming for 2023 at best:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/15/tesla-driverless-cars_n_5990136.html

I blame the lack of autopilot for these human fingers.

Everyone is waiting for California

[macsimcon]

A few months ago, I attended a talk on autonomous vehicles at the Petersen Auto Museum in Los Angeles. The executive from the California Department of Transportation told us that they’ve met with dozens of representatives from different states and countries, and they are all waiting to see what happens here.

California already has laws allowing the testing of autonomous vehicles, and many manufacturers have enrolled. They counted fifteen companies that were working on autonomous cars, including Toyota, Volvo, and most every car company you could name.

They described the five categories of vehicle automation, and explained that the first autonomous (not Musk’s so called “autopilot” which isn’t) vehicles will hit the road in the summer of 2015.

Re:Everyone is waiting for California

[awtbfb]

They described the five categories of vehicle automation, and explained that the first autonomous (not Musk’s so called “autopilot” which isn’t) vehicles will hit the road in the summer of 2015.

Here's the levels. Most high-functioning systems on the market, like the Tesla version, are in the Level 1-2 range.

No-Automation (Level 0): The driver is in complete and sole control of the primary vehicle controls – brake, steering, throttle, and motive power – at all times.

Function-specific Automation (Level 1): Automation at this level involves one or more specific control functions. Examples include electronic stability control or pre-charged brakes, where the vehicle automatically assists with braking to enable the driver to regain control of the vehicle or stop faster than possible by acting alone.

Combined Function Automation (Level 2): This level involves automation of at least two primary control functions designed to work in unison to relieve the driver of control of those functions. An example of combined functions enabling a Level 2 system is adaptive cruise control in combination with lane centering.

Limited Self-Driving Automation (Level 3): Vehicles at this level of automation enable the driver to cede full control of all safety-critical functions under certain traffic or environmental conditions and in those conditions to rely heavily on the vehicle to monitor for changes in those conditions requiring transition back to driver control. The driver is expected to be available for occasional control, but with sufficiently comfortable transition time. The Google car is an example of limited self-driving automation.

Full Self-Driving Automation (Level 4): The vehicle is designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip. Such a design anticipates that the driver will provide destination or navigation input, but is not expected to be available for control at any time during the trip. This includes both occupied and unoccupied vehicles.

U.S. Department of Transportation Releases Policy on Automated Vehicle Development

Re:For Starters

[gstoddart]

Autodriving is a protection against accidents caused by human error.

If that is the rationale, then the car needs to be 100% automated, under all circumstances, with all liability going to whoever made the damned thing.

Many of us have been saying for quite some time ... if we're liable for the actions of a robot, or the automated car is suddenly going to transfer control back to you to solve the problem ... these things will continue to be nothing more than novelties.

If you expect me to be driving in an automated car, I shouldn't reasonably need to be even awake, because any failover to human more or less needs to assume it isn't possible to do that safely.

And why the hell would I pay insurance on my car if it's not being operated by me? You think I'd take the liability over for Google? Why would I do that?

So, if it isn't 100% automated 100% of the time ... it's a half-ass solution which is going to have corner cases in which bad things will happen, and whoever made it will act like it was your fault.

Done properly, the auto insurance industry goes out of business with autonomous cars. Done improperly, there's still the illusion that the meat-sock which should essentially be a passenger is responsible.

In which case, the meat-sock might as well drive their own car.