What Do We Know About Autonomous Vehicles?
A comprehensive guide to the state of self-driving tech
Autonomous vehicles are currently subject to a lot of hope, hype and hysteria, especially after the recent fatality in Arizona, when a pedestrian was struck and killed by one of Uber’s self-driving cars. Autonomous vehicles will likely have as significant an impact on our lives as electricity, computers and the internet all did. However, just like the aforementioned innovations, we cannot predict all the varied impacts and implications, both positive and negative, of self-driving vehicles. Here, we’ll offer a brief overview of what we do know and what’s still up in the air.
What We Know
Autonomous vehicles are coming.
In fact, they’re already here. Autonomous buses and shuttles are currently being deployed in city centers , sprawling work sites, and airports; driverless trucks are delivering beer long distances; and Waymo’s test set of self-driving cars have clocked five millions miles on public roads. Even autonomous flying taxis seem to be in our near future. It’s no longer a matter of if, but when.
