The California DMV recently granted Waymo a permit to test out its driverless cars on the city streets without a safety driver. The company reportedly has a fleet of about 40 vehicles that will soon be traveling around the state on city streets, highways, and rural roads.
Waymo is the first company to obtain the permit that will enable them to test completely driverless vehicles on the roads in the state.
There will be a remote operator that is going to monitor the progress of the driverless vehicles and if something goes wrong, they would be able to take over. Soon, there will be opportunities for members of the public to test the vehicles, at first though it will only be Waymo team members.
Self-driving cars have already claimed at least one life and there have been several accidents. This means that more companies have started paying attention to the importance of marketing safety with these vehicles and moving forward cautiously to build trust in this new industry.
Previous surveys have found that many Americans aren't looking forward to self-driving cars and they aren't ready to embrace this sort of driving technology just yet. It's going to be a difficult sell as there are millions of people who are still fearful of this driving technology.
At least 63 percent have reported that they are wary of embracing fully autonomous vehicles on the road. Even more, about 73 percent say that they are afraid of riding in a self-driving vehicle. It's not just riding in the car that has them scared either, some also report that they would be uneasy commuting as a pedestrian or riding a bicycle if there were an uptick of self-driving cars on the road. It is going to be very difficult for these companies to convince the people about the safety of the product.
Self-driving vehicles are expected to soon hit the streets (if they haven't already) in areas like Dubai, Sinagpore, the UK, and elsewhere.
Not just cars...
A number of trucking companies today are struggling to find drivers, it is likely that they will look to driverless trucks to provide a solution to their labor shortage.
As well, automakers and others who are interested in seeing the progression of the industry, have been actively pushing for the passage of a bill, known as the AV Start Act, that would make way for driverless vehicles to finally hit the road in the U.S. which are exempt from federal rules and more.
Hyundai has already indicated that they'll likely have a fully autonomous vehicle ready by 2030, Toyota, Mercedes, Ford, and many others have also been invested in pursuing autonomous vehicles and it's estimated that we might start to see many more of these vehicles finally on the market within only a few years time. They've still got plenty of convincing to do however, when it comes to persuading the public to invest in or experiment with this method of transportation.
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