California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has just posted its new rules for self-driving cars, and they are decidedly a win for Tesla and a loss for Google.
The rules state that a licensed driver must be at the wheel of a self-driving car in California at all times.
This is a fail for Google in a few ways.
One, Google’s goal is to transform mobility for millions of people who cannot become licensed drivers — the disabled, the young, the old. Requiring at least one autonomous vehicle passenger to also be a licensed driver completely defeats that goal.
Two, Google’s strategy is to bypass the phase of autonomous vehicle development in which the car must be able to pass control to the driver. That phase is tricky, and by taking all driving control away from the humans in the car, Google simplified its needs. Now the California DMV is forcing Google to tackle this specific problem.
Three, Tesla has been working on this human-machine interaction model for a long time, so it has a big head start over Google.
That said, Google has a lot of money, and thus a lot of political muscle. I don’t consider this to be the final word on self-driving regulations.
Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on December 17, 2015.
David Silver 