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Brian Ferrell
UWRT 1103
Ms. Caruso
18 February 2016

Self driving cars

The idea of a vehicle that goes from one place to another with minimal human
interference is definitely not a new one, but in recent years the technology has moved forward at
a rapid pace. Today, multiple companies and organizations are working toward a common goalto put self driving cars on the road for use in everyday life. This will mean changes to everyday
life, changes in jobs, and hopefully safer cars.
My first question is where and when did the technology start. The history of the self
driving car started in the 1960s, with the Stanford Cart(Wired.com).The cart was built for
research on controlling vehicles using video on the moon, and used until the 1980s. In the
1980s, Ernst Dickmanns started a self driving car project at Bundeswehr University
Munich(dyna-vision.de). His team set up a Mercedes van to control it through commands based
on evaluation of images from sensors on the vehicle. The van, called VaMoRs, was able to drive
autonomously in 1986, and the project continued until 2003. His second project, called VaMP,
did a long distance drive from Munich to Odense in 1995(dyna-vision). The Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency(DARPA), hosted a self-driving car competition in 2004, but none of
the cars finished the race. By the next challenge in 2005, the technology had improved and five
teams completed (Techinsider). In 2010, an Audi TT climbed Pikes Peak autonomously in 27
minutes(Wired.com).
So, who is working on this technology to bring self driving cars to consumers?

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There are several companies working on the technology today. Three of the most prevalent are
Google, Tesla, and Audi. Google started their self-driving car project in 2009. Today, their cars
have driven over 1 million miles(Google). They are testing the vehicles in Mountain View,
California, Austin, Texas, and Kirkland, Washington. Google is using 22 Lexus SUVs, and 33
prototypes that are designed by them(Googleusercontent). Their technology is still developing
and will move to other cities. The biggest consumer car with self driving capabilities is the Tesla
Model S. Tesla released the 7.0 software update for the car that introduced autopark, autosteer,
and other features, allowing the car to drive on highways semi-autonomously. This is the closest
to a self driving car that you can buy at this point. Other vehicles have some autonomous
features, like the Mercedes S550 or the Audi A8. The Mercedes has a feature much like the
Tesla which uses sensors to stay in lane and slow as traffic around it does, then speed up
again. Both of them, as well as cars from other manufacturers have automatic parallel parking
and lane-departure warnings(Fortune). It amazes me that so many of our modern cars have
elements of this technology that seems so far off.
Some of these cars clearly are capable of driving almost by themselves in certain
situations , and seem to be at a level where they can drive semi- reliably on the highway. They
still arent at a level to drive on busy city streets safely, however. In an interview with Elon Musk,
owner of Tesla, he predicts the future of self driving cars. He says, " Even with the current
sensor suite we could make the car go fully autonomous, but not to a level of reliability that
would be safe in, say, a complex urban environment at 30 miles per hour where the lane
markings arent there"(Gizmodo). He explains that highway cruising and slow speeds are easy
because of the predictability, and Urban medium speed areas are the most challenging part,
due to the unexpected things happening often in urban environments.
In 2010, there were around 6 million automobile crashes in the United States(Fortune),
and 93 percent of those were caused by human mistakes. If the technology powering the self

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driving cars gets advanced enough, enough autonomous cars will be on the road to drastically
reduce that number.
Tech companies are trying their hardest to release the technology, but many people are
skeptical about the cars. In a Business Insider article, self-driving cars are criticized for being
costly, boring, and potentially unsafe (BusinessInsider). Another article makes a good point
about the decision making of the cars. People are able to comprehend a dynamic situation and
make a decision that causes the least harm, and based on your driving license test scores,
people can be trusted to act ethically and wisely(Theatlantic). Autonomous cars are
programmed to follow the traffic laws, no matter what is happening. The article gives an
example of a tree branch hanging in the road. If there is not a car coming, the average human
driver will swerve into the next lane to avoid the branch. With the way autonomous cars work
now, the car will just stop in the right lane, potentially getting hit by the car behind it.
The self driving car could also cause millions of jobs to be phased out over time. The
transportation sector is one of the biggest in the country(forbes). Millions of people are
employed in transportation related jobs, and they could be replaced in the future. The only way
the jobs will be replaced, however, is if the cost of a self driving vehicle is less than what the
drivers are getting paid, and that wont happen for a while.
As far as regulating self-driving cars, a few states have put regulations on them in the
past year. The most notable is California, one of the states where Google tests their cars. They
passed a regulation in 2015 requiring self driving cars to have a licensed person in the car at all
times(Fortune). When the technology advances further, im sure that more laws will be put in
place, but for now they are legal with not many rules. In the distant future, there will possibly be
talk of regulating human controlled cars. As much as I like this technology, I dont want that to
happen because I love driving too much.

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https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/
http://www.wired.com/2012/02/autonomous-vehicle-history/
Tom Vanderbilt Wired.com
http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/cart.htm
http://www.dyna-vision.de/
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tjochem/nhaa/navlab5_details.html

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http://www.techinsider.io/the-first-self-driving-cars-that-competed-in-darpa-grand-challenge2015-10
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-self-driving-car-is-an-awful-idea-2012-6?op=1
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/the-ethics-of-autonomous-cars/280360/
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/the-ethics-of-autonomous-cars/280360/
Patrick Lin
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/02/01/what-it-feels-like-to-drive-atesla-on-autopilot/
https://www.teslamotors.com/presskit/autopilot
http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/mercedes-launches-worlds-most-advanced-selfdriving-car20160109-gm2lwf.html
http://fortune.com/2015/12/16/google-california-rules-self-driving-cars/
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/self-driving-cars-legal-real-rules-nice/
http://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-describes-the-future-of-self-driving-cars-1692076449
http://fortune.com/2014/12/06/autonomous-vehicle-revolution/ Michael Casey