Driveless Cars

Autonomous cars will be the most important extension of the Internet since smartphones. And they’ll be ubiquitous much sooner than you think.

- Evan Dashevsky

For those who are perpetually frustrated by the tech industry’s continued failure to live up to Hollywood-style depictions of the future, self-driving cars might seem about as likely as warp speed or time-traveling cyborgs. But unlike those other unfulfilled sci-fi promises, we have the technology necessary to make driverless cars a reality right now. In fact, fully automated vehicles are teetering on the edge of commercial viability.

As researchers around the globe continue to tinker with autonomous driving software, they’re also anticipating its potential impact. Handing the keys over to algorithms means our cars will, in effect, become an information technology. But unlike laptops and smartphones, connected cars will alter the world around us in many ways.

INCHING TOWARD INEVITABILITY

Aside from the still-very-much-in-beta fully automated vehicles (AVs) currently being road-tested by the likes of Google, technologies that allow cars to operate at least somewhat independently have been with us for years and, in some cases, decades.

In 2013, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a blueprint outlining how advanced forms of automation should be introduced to public roads. It included five levels of autonomy ranging from Level 0 (“No Automation”) to Level 4 (“Full Self-Driving Automation”).