The California Department of Motor Vehicles released on Wednesday a proposal regulating self-driving vehicles.
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So far, 11 companies have permits to test self-driving cars on the state’s roads, as long as a driver is present in the vehicle as well. The human driver also needs to acquire a state-issued “autonomous vehicle operator certificate”, so that he can take over the wheels when it becomes necessary.
In defense of the proposal, the California agency says, “Given the potential risk associated with deployment of such a new technology, DMV believes that manufacturers need to obtain more experience in testing driverless vehicles on public roads prior to making this technology available to the general public”.
Plus, manufacturers will be barred from installing features to allow cars to drive themselves to parking lots after dropping passengers off at their destination. A source with Google tells Bloomberg the next step for these cars is to be part of a ride-booking company under the umbrella company Alphabet Inc. Google and Alphabet co-founder Sergey Brin suggested that these cars would first appear as a form a service, saying it would let a lot of people try the technology and that having the cars returned back to the headquarters for daily updates.
The cars would have to be equipped to detect a cyber attack on their computer brains and alert the human so they can override the system. About three-quarters of them are owned by Google X and tested daily on trips around the company’s Mountain View headquarters.
Manufacturers must also disclose to autonomous vehicle operators what information will be collected by the vehicle, and they must get written approval by the operators.
These requirements are a major blow for Alphabet, who after many years of testing produced a two-person prototype Google Car, that in its final-form will not have pedals or the steering wheel.
However, the DMV said it would reassess the safety of fully-autonomous vehicles in the future.
Before the adoption, the DMV has scheduled public meetings where these rules would be debated, set to take place on January 28 and February 2, 2016.
Google – which is operating its self-driving cars on the streets of Palo Alto, California and Austin, Texas – and other carmakers and suppliers have said the technology to build self-driving cars should be ready by 2020.
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“Safety is our highest priority and primary motivator as we do this”, a Google spokesperson told The New York Times.
