Automakers know exactly how safe their self-driving cars should be now that the U.S. government has updated its decades-old regulations to include vehicles without steering wheels, pedals, or seats.
In short, any light-duty vehicle designed to carry people and drive itself has to protect those people the same way that every other vehicle does.
But while these new rules offer much-needed clarity, they don’t govern how any autonomous driving system should function. NHTSA has been overtly hands-off in this area and still has no requirements for how such critical systems like emergency braking or adaptive cruise should work. But for now, the door is wide open for future autonomous cars—even if there isn’t a seat at that door.
Read the article at Car and Driver.
