As the public carefully awaited and witnessed the development and arrival ofthe Google driverless cars whizzing through the public roads, the company was deeply disappointed with the rules recently drafted and announced by the state of California, as stated by sources. The draft regulations from California’s Department of Motor Vehicles require the cars to have a steering wheel, and a licensed driver must be ready to take over if the machine fails.
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According to the Mashable, Under this proposed law, manufacturers of self-driving cars will be granted a three-year deployment permit, where they can lease cars to customers, but not sell them.
Google, which is pushing to get cars without a steering wheel or pedals to consumers, expressed “grave disappointment” with the rules, which the tech giant said would slow deployment of technology with huge life-saving potential.
Google has been pretty damn transparent when it comes to their self-driving project, even publishing monthly reports that talk about accidents that took place and learnings from the team.
Though the timeline for public access is squishy, in principle the DMV could finalize the rules and a manufacturer could satisfy the safety requirements as early as 2017.
California rules matter, unfortunately, because it is the largest vehicle market.
If approved for legislation, the new DMV rules would mean that Google, Apple, BMW, Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Tesla and VW would have to cease its testing within the Californian State and look further afield to develop its fully autonomous technology.
The DMV’s proposals also include legislation that any autonomous vehicle offered for sale would need to be tested and certified by a third-party auditor.
“Google may be in overdrive in its rush to develop robot cars, but the DMV has admirably served as traffic cop and proposed reasonable limits to protect public safety”, said John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project director.
Austin’s mayoral spokesman Jason Stanford said his city’s government already believes self-driving cars are “legal and safe” and is “thrilled to host innovative ideas like this”. Leading the chant against the current DMV rules is Google, the primary company pushing for cars without human drivers. They’re not simply testing the roads there, they’re testing the community.
The technology for self-driving cars has been advancing quickly, and is centered around on-board radar and cameras as well as highly detailed onboard maps that combine to tell a auto where it is in the world.
Workshops were planned to gather feedback from industry, consumer, academic and advocacy groups, as well as from the public.
Since these regulations are in draft form, the long back and forth between companies and the DMV begins now.
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The DMV says future regulatory packages will need to address the safety, performance and equipment requirements associated with true driverless cars.
