DETROIT – U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Thursday at the North American International Auto Show that the federal government would like to spend $4 billion over the next decade to make autonomous vehicles a reality on America’s roads.
“Automated vehicles open up opportunities for saving time, saving lives and saving fuel,” Foxx said. “We are bullish on automated vehicles.”
Foxx said driverless-cars could also ease the road-clogging effects of an expected explosion in the U.S. population – although automakers remained concerned about millennials who have shown more interest in renting cars by the hour or day than buying them, an IBM study shows. (To read that story, click on https://dev.mitechnews.com/featured/ibm-study-consumers-still-want-cars-but-maybe-not-own-them/)
Regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also are bullish on autonomous vehicles. NHTSA has said it would exempt some from existing rules if they deem them to provide significant safe benefits. Automakers would be allowed to put some 2,500 driverless cars on the roads for up to two years that would otherwise violate current U.S. regulations.
Regulators are trying to keep pace with an auto industry that already is putting autonomous vehicles on public roads for testing – with current federal laws passed before the advent of driverless vehicles. What is lacking for automakers is clarity from the U.S. government on what will be allowed in autonomous vehicles now and in the future. With ever evolving technology, those regulations need to be flexible.
For instance, GM this month disclosed a $500 million investment in car-hailing service Lyft Inc. with an eye toward allowing customers on day to order cars from a smartphone and have them appear with no driver needed. Existing technologies, such as automatic braking, lane-keep assist and adaptive cruise control are making many new cars and trucks semi-autonomous. And who knows what new disruptive technology is under development in labs around the world that could be blended into tomorrow’s autonomous vehicles.
“We recognize we have some catching up to do,” Foxx said.
But from the DOT’s point of view, driverless cars could have saved more than 25,000 lives last year by eliminating human error, which is overwhelmingly cited as the prime cause of highway accidents.
The DOT wants guidelines in place before crashes with driverless cars lead to lawsuits that could thwart this growing trend. “We’re entering a new world and we know it,” Foxx said. “We’re doing our level best to get ahead of it.”
