Driverless cars must have a driver – at least for now, rules California

The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles on Wednesday issued a draft of potential regulations for putting regular people behind the wheel of autonomous vehicles.

Google, which leads the research field, has made a self-driving auto without any controls such as steering wheels or pedals.

In addition, the regulations state that manufacturers will be approved for a three-year deployment permit, which will require them to regularly report on the performance, safety, and usage of autonomous vehicles.

Manufacturers must submit autonomous vehicles to third-party testing to verify the car’s “ability to perform key driving maneuvers that are typically encountered in real-world driving conditions”.

Ford this week said that it has a green light to test self-driving cars in California, and should have them on roads in the most populous USA state next year. They’ll also need to provide a written disclosure to operators of the cars outlining the data that they’ll be collecting.

Company spokesman Johnny Luu says Google, which has led development of the technology, is “gravely disappointed” by the rules, which will limit Google’s ability to deploy the cars as quickly as it would like.

Earlier this year, the company announced a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, which calls itself “the birthplace of self-driving or autonomous vehicle technology”.

In June, the company began testing tiny, bubble-shaped self-driving prototype vehicles of its own design on public roads around Mountain View.

Google has been testing self-driving cars on California roads for a while, and an array of automobile makers including Audi, Mercedes, Lexus, Tesla and BMW are working on building self-driving capabilities into vehicles. Car-riding app provider Uber is also aggressively pursuing the development of self-driving vehicles, as are numerous major automakers, including Daimler, Audi and BMW.

The DMV proposal would mandate that autonomous vehicles be operated by a licensed driver who could take over if necessary.

“Safety is our highest priority and primary motivator”, Google’s statement said.

It makes sense for Google to separate the project as there is such a wide scope for autonomous and driver-assistance technology in the automotive industry.

The new business will initially launch a fleet of vehicles offering rides for hire in locations such as college campuses, airports and corporate business parks, Bloomberg reported, with San Francisco and Austin set to be the first locations. “We want to get public input on these draft regulations before we initiate the formal regulatory rule making process.”. They will help frame how regulators elsewhere give consumers access to the cars.

The DMV will hold further discussions with the public about the theoretical regulations in January and February.