The US government has made a major announcement about self-driving cars
Source: Andrew Meola
.png)
This story was delivered to BI Intelligence IoT Briefing subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has made a major announcement about the future of self-driving cars in the U.S.
The NHTSA will have no say in additional regulations that the individual states implement on top of the NHTSA's federal regulations for fully autonomous cars. This announcement comes from NHTSA chief Mark Rosekind at a conference last week, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The NHTSA plans to release federal regulations next month.
This could be a blow to tech companies and automakers that are developing self-driving cars because they would have to deal with individual regulatory hurdles in each state. New Jersey, for example, reportedly wants to mandate a special driver's license for people to drive fully autonomous cars. Florida, on the other hand, would let anyone with a standard license do so. And California has proposed regulations that would require a driver behind the wheel of fully autonomous cars at all times.
These regulations would significantly reduce the potential for ride-hailing services, such as Uber and Lyft, to monetize self-driving cars because they would still need to hire drivers for them.
Tight regulations in the U.S. are still one of the greatest barriers preventing fully autonomous cars from filling the roads. Different states have different laws, which means automakers have to deal with potentially 50 different regulatory situations. Therefore, it stands to reason that the first fully autonomous car could be released outside of the U.S.
There are certainly multiple barriers to self-driving car adoption in the U.S., but there is also plenty of potential and promise for the companies who are developing these vehicles.
John Greenough, senior research analyst for BI Intelligence, has compiled a detailed report on self-driving cars that examines the major strides automakers and tech companies have made to overcome the barriers currently preventing fully autonomous cars from hitting the market. Further, the report examines global survey results showing where fully autonomous cars are highly desired.
Here are some key takeaways from the report:
Three barriers have been preventing fully autonomous cars from hitting the road: 1) high technological component prices; 2) varying degrees of consumer trust in the technology; and 3) relatively nonexistent regulations. However, in the past six months, there have been many advances in overcoming these barriers.
Technology has been improving as new market entrants find innovative ways to expand on existing fully autonomous car technology. As a result, the price of the components required for fully autonomous cars has been dropping.
Consumer trust in fully autonomous vehicle technology has increased in the past two years.
California became the first US state to propose regulations. California's regulations stipulate that a fully autonomous car must have a driver behind the wheel at all times, discouraging Google's and Uber's idea of a driverless taxi system.
| }
|