The arrival of autonomous vehicles (AV, or self-driving vehicles) on the public highways is getting closer. Just this month (June 2017), Nutonomy announced a partnership with Lyft for R&D on its existing AV testing on the streets of Boston. Lyft announced yesterday that by 2025 it will provide “at least 1 billion rides per year using electric autonomous vehicles.” Also this week, Japanese robotics firm ZMP announced its plan to have an AV taxi on the streets of Tokyo in time for the 2020 Olympics. The need for AV regulation is pressing.
The U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee responded Tuesday by releasing bipartisan principles for AV legislation ahead of a Wednesday hearing titled ‘Paving the way for self-driving vehicles.’ The authors of the principles, U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), plan to introduce legislation, but have so far set neither a date nor deadline for this.