Should We Be Afraid Of Driverless Vehicles On Our Roads?

Tesla Model Y SUVs are about to be at the core of a technological shift. On June 12, they’ll be the company’s first driverless vehicles to launch in Texas. Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed on his social media site, X, that for “the past several days, Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver’s seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents.” Driverless vehicles are ready for prime time, or so Musk says.

The plan is for Tesla to test 10 robotaxis with an anticipated 15 rides each day. Such preliminary trials will build a wealth of performance data and could give the company the evidence it needs to expand the number of robotaxis on Austin roads. “It’s prudent for us to start with a small number, confirm that things are going well, and then scale it up,” Musk said last week.

“We believe the golden age of autonomous is now on the doorstep for Tesla with the Austin launch on June 12th kicking off this key next chapter of growth,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote to investors. Ives added that it is now time for Musk to focus and steer “Tesla in a very positive direction with autonomous and robotics the future.”

Acknowledging there will be technical setbacks, Ives added that the transition to autonomy could be worth $1 trillion for Tesla. “We see the true autonomous winner as Tesla and over the coming year more investors will recognize this AI vision,” he wrote.

The first “self-delivery” from the factory to a customer is scheduled for next month. It’s been suggested that the robotaxi release is meant to soften Tesla sales losses, which have fallen worldwide with rising competition and as Musk faces a backlash for his right-wing political views and his work for the White House.

The Trump administration has said it plans to speed up the rollout and use of autonomous vehicles. That policy change means certain models would be exempted from safety requirements — for example, the requirement for rear view mirrors. Importantly, watering down rules around reporting autonomous accidents and crashes is commonly expected to speed up cost, lessen regulation time, and accelerate market availability.

Seeing a car or truck without someone in the driver’s seat, though, has caused concern among locals. As one Boston driver put it, “I assess a situation and know it’s safe,” he said, then explained. “If I’m at a red light at 2 a.m., and no one is on the road, or in the car with me, I’m going to blow the red light.”

Are the programmers ready to teach a computer how to anticipate the needs of drivers who improvise?

Driverless Vehicles on Today’s Roads

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) uses the term “automated driving systems” to describe driverless vehicles. Within autonomy, three key use cases have their own distinct parameters: personal vehicles, robotaxis, and autonomous trucks. Additionally, the World Economic Forum outlines six levels of advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving (ADAS/AD): manual, assisted driving, partially automated driving, advanced partially automated driving, automated driving under conditions, autonomous driving under conditions, and autonomous driving under all conditions.

The common denominator in the majority of these cases and levels is the presence of AI. AI is the agent driving the vehicle and assuming critical safety-related control functions, primarily in urban areas. Having this technology unleashed on US roads means that everyday people witness it in action.

Most people admit being afraid when seeing AI driving cars deployed in city spaces in close proximity to humans and other vehicles. The fear of driverless vehicles is not a generic emotion, according to researchers. People reason that driverless vehicles could interface with particular conditions and result in mishaps:

• cyclists;
• pedestrians;
• cars and vehicles driven by humans;
• hackers overriding the car’s computer system; and,
• the hazard of glitches that would make the cars operate abnormally or freeze abruptly.

Tesla is not the only company teasing the idea of driverless vehicles across the US. Waymo’s (Google’s) robotaxis have been spotted mapping Boston and Houston city streets. (Caveat: The Waymo vehicles have human drivers right now to help the company gather data.) Last month, Aurora Innovation, based in Pittsburgh, became the first company to operate a driverless 18-wheeler on a US highway.

Waymo Expands its Testing Area

Waymo’s self-driving ride-hail vehicles are already operating in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, Texas, with plans to start in Atlanta, DC, and Miami. The cars are outfitted with cameras, radar, and lidar (a detection system that works on the principle of radar, but uses light from a laser) and are being driven — for now — by humans.

At least six complaints have been filed against Waymo in Austin. One was classified as a “safety concern,” four as “nuisance” and one as a “near miss” — according to a city site that logs autonomous vehicle incidents. Staff within the City of Austin Transportation and Public Works Department have been collecting information about incidents that pose a risk to public safety and relaying that data to the appropriate operators. The city acknowledges that AV technology “is novel and undergoing continual improvement.”

Houston city departments and emergency responders have been briefed on protocols for interacting with autonomous vehicles, and a spokesperson indicated that the mayor will continue to monitor the situation.

Semi Truck Makes Texas Autonomous History

Its proponents really like autonomous trucks. They feel that the shipping companies and workers will benefit, as well as others on the road. No longer would the combination of long haul and low pay be a detriment to the trucking industry — and trucks wouldn’t have hourly restrictions due to human sleep and safety requirements. The driverless trucks would be safer and more predictable, many people argue.

“If you’re a farm that has fresh produce, the reach of your farm just expanded dramatically,” Chris Urmson, the chief executive of Aurora, told the New York Times. Urmson vows his trucks will be safe. “We have something like 2.7 million tests that we run the system through.”

The trucks are equipped with nearly 360-degree sensors that can detect objects 1,000 feet away; the company’s new truck has over 1,000 driverless miles in Texas.

Aurora has operated just two trucks without a driver — only in good weather and during the day. Although, the company plans to continue modifying for difficult weather conditions like rain. The company is fine-tuning the technology for bad weather, and said its robotruck would drive conservatively in the rain and use blasts of high-pressure air to clean the lenses of its sensors. Runs in the snow aren’t yet planned.

The company has also recently added an observer to the driver’s seat at the request of the truck’s manufacturer. The Aurora plan to upgrade to at least 20 trucks by the end of 2025 is still active.

At least three other companies are also developing driverless trucks. One of the companies, Kodiak Robotics, has started to use driverless trucks on dirt roads in Texas.

Final Thoughts

While many people are concerned about driverless vehicles on the roads, a portion of people see autonomy as a technological innovation with perceived attributes. They include:

• individual benefits like stress-free driving and appreciation of the surrounding cityscape;
• urban benefits, such as safety features that reduce accidents or open up transit for non-drivers; and,
• global social and environmental benefits that present a clean and sustainable form of urban transport that will lower global carbon emissions, thereby mitigating climate change.

The advances in language models have introduced many of these likely social benefits. Increased positive perception and understanding are commensurate with advances in navigation and planning, decision-making and control, end-to-end autonomous driving, and data generation.

Reconciling the benefits to society while AI learns the rules of the human road will take time, patience, and further innovation.