No a surprise at all that Google is threatening to leave California and take its driverless testing and business elsewhere due to the state's draft regulations for autonomous vehicles. The draft regs read like they could have been written in the 1950s.
But where should Google go?
Google (or rather Alphabet, which, we all know, is Google) driverless could leave the U.S. There's a driverless shuttle transit service already being tested - on public roads - with passengers - at slow speeds - in the Netherlands.
If Google would prefer being in an English-speaking country, there is the United Kingdom, which is about to start three driverless pod pilot programs, also on local roads. In 2016, travel to England and hop on for an exciting ride before even getting to a plane at Heathrow airport.
With all of the driverless pilot shuttles and tests going on, Google staff might be in their Mountain View bathrooms and screaming ...
Shoot, we're already behind!
Google is correct to be freaked out. Driverless competition is not only coming from overseas, but from its own American backyard. A small Cambridge company, nuTonomy is right on its heels, as well as every conventional car company and Uber. nuTonomy is promising a more human-driver-like experience. I hope that does not mean more crashes and fatalities.
GM is reported to be stepping up its driverless game with a team that will be going beyond research into actual product development. And now they have Lyft on board as well.
States are begging
Michigan sorely wants to remain the center of automotive technology and manufacturing, even if that means driverless taxi pods and shared shuttles. Ann Arbor is reported to be one of the places Google is either considering or actually going. This story is everywhere and maybe it's just a head fake to freak out California. No one knows at this point, but Google would like its cars to experience rain and snow.
Other states are making noises about wanting driverless. Some seem pretty desperate. That will be Part Two of this post if I get to Part Two.
Lawmakers need to step up to the plate
Like it or not, developers and sellers of driverless vehicles will have to account for a legal system that governs what is permitted on the roads of states and countries. That's just a fact, according to former Google-employee and now Baidu-employee Andrew Ng.
In my opinion, the setback for driverless in the US is that our states independently govern their own roadways, with responsibility often at the city and county levels. A hodgepodge of conflicting laws would be the worst situation. In the next year or two, we need either federal legislation to pass, which is unlikely, or a meeting of the minds for a uniform code of driverless laws among the states. The uniform code approach works well in many areas of the law, including many aspects of commercial law. It would also allow the states and state judiciaries to retain their authority over regulation and litigation concerning driverless vehicles.
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