Google has faced a lot of hurdles as of late, when it comes to their autonomous or self-driving vehicles. They were first designed without any pedals or steering wheels. Although the regulators wanted these cars to have both a steering wheel and pedals in case of emergency and the driver can take over the car. Which Google added in, without too much of a hassle. But now there are a bunch of other safety concerns here with their self-driving cars. In fact, the rules that are put in place already, are decades old, and the secretary of Transportation for the US has already stated that they are working on drafting a new set of rules for the new self-driving age. As Google is not the only ones working on self-driving cars – so are Tesla, Ford, Chrysler and many others.
The director of Google’s self-driving car project, Chris Urmson, wrote a letter to Anthony Foxx, the US Transportation Secretary, today about how the company plans on selling these self-driving cars. While there was little mentioned to the public, in regards to how they are planning to sell these cars. One thing was made public, and that is that Urmson and Google believe that if these self-driving cars can pass safety tests that they should then be road-legal. And it’s tough to disagree with him, actually. Why else wouldn’t they be legal?
Lawmakers and companies like Google, who are working on autonomous cars have been trying to work together to set some rules up and get out of the way of autonomous cars. Google and Chris Urmson have been some of the more vocal parties in regards to this. Google has been working on their self-driving cars for quite a few years now, and have made a ton of progress here. So much progress that Google have actually made other car makers nervous about them selling cars.
Ford is another company that is working on self-driving cars, in fact they are even testing them in the snow, something Google hasn’t just yet. It’ll be interesting to see what the next step is in regards to self-driving cars being available. But it’s likely going to be a bit longer before that happens.