Norway Aims To Allow Testing Of Self-Driving Cars in 2017 (reuters.com)

The Norwegian government aims to pass a law in the spring of next year to allow testing of self-driving vehicles on Norwegian roads, it said on Thursday. From a report: Norway is one of the largest markets for Tesla Motors electric vehicles, thanks to generous government subsidies. Tesla said in October its new models will come with hardware, including cameras and a radar, to enable them to be fully-self driving. The move to permit testing of self-driving vehicles is also aimed at giving a competitive edge to Norwegian technology companies as the country seeks to diversify away from the offshore petroleum sector, hit by a plunge in global oil prices.

Comments

no need

[gravewax]

no need to waste money on permitting it, Uber can do it without government approval

Re:no need

[Anonymous Coward]

Red tape will not impede technological progress.

The question is not whether or not we will get there, but who will get there first.
 

Re:no need

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber operates outside the laws and regulations. not all red tape is bad, unless you are uber.

Re:no need

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber only see red tape as something to impede profit, they don't give a shit about technological progress.

Rollback

[Empiric]

Public roads: Now in Alpha

Technology preview available now, possibly lethal, and mandatory.

Uber says thanks for the tech jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber says thanks for the tech jobs.
California says bye to tech jobs.

Call me when Trump grab some pussies in California.

Indicators

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, maybe finally at least the robot driven cars will use indicators in this country. None of the humans bother with them.

They public Healthcare so when an auto drive

[Joe_Dragon]

They public Healthcare so when an auto drive hit you in the bike lane after running the red light your covered vs in the usa you have your bills racking up while the courts are fighting out who is going pay up.

Re: They public Healthcare so when an auto drive

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm concerned. Your grammar is so bad I had trouble reading it. Does this mean you went to a grossly underfunded public school, are just stupid, or possibly a Trump supporter? Or maybe all three?

Re: They public Healthcare so when an auto drive

[Anonymous Coward]

After some rudimentary decrypting it appears to be a scandinavian with a bit of schadenfreude regarding the peculiar form of health care in the US. Norwegian comment sections are full of the same, only with the perspective that EV drivers, bicyclists, women, children, elderly people and public servants are a completely unneccessary burden on the state budget and should be sent to internment camps. This could very well be one of the ne right-wing ministers Norway got this week. I wouldn't put neither the grammar nor the blunt sarcasm beyond some of them.

Since you asked: public life in Norway have plenty of Trump-esque characters, whose claims to fame are a bizarre mixture of cherry picked facts, conspiracy theories, wishful thinking and ideology. They are currently engaged in some sort of one-up-manship with Trump's ongoing freak show.

Re: They public Healthcare so when an auto drive

[IrquiM]

We only got one right-wing, however, he'll be the minister of justice :/ The others aren't that bad.

Trollstigen

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see self driving cars navigate the trollstigen at peak season against big tour buses and large trucks in both directions :)

Not subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

The article mentions that Teslas are popular in Norway due to government subsidies. That is not quite right. Cars are heavily taxed in Norway and higher emissions means higher taxes. Teslas in Norway are therefore not taxed as heavily as other cars. But that is something else than being subsidised...

Re:Not subsidies

[Ashtead]

Teslas and other electrical cars do not have VAT charged on the sale price, and once on the road it can be driven for free on all the toll roads and toll-enclosed city centers. Annual registration charge is also the minimum rate otherwise applicable to veteran cars, older than 30 years, and they are allowed in most of the bus and taxi lanes. The term subsidy has been used for this, maybe it should be called tax relief, or incentives, or something else. However, whether the government pays extra for something or just refrains from charging taxes on something doesn't make much of a difference in the end: it does make these cars much more popular than they would have been otherwise.

Now as for autonomous cars in this place where the winter is an inferno in white with snow or an inferno in black with the grime and mud produced by salt and studded tires grinding up the pavement ending up all over the cars and the road; snow or mud covering road markings such as the center, lane divider, and edge lines (provided there are any there at all) -- then add the unique tendency of Oslo pedestrians to wander into the street in front of anything that moves (cars, buses, streetcars, bicyclists) never mind trafic lights... and the large population of moose and deer in the woodlands all over the place which isn't exactly known for their good traffic discipline either, and it is going to be really interesting to see how this experiment turns out!

What took them so long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are they behind the US?

And for that matter why are the only companies mentioned Ford, Google and Tesla?

Is anyone else seriously working on this? Does the US have to do all the work?