There are many names that describe driverless cars: self-driving cars, autonomous cars, robot cars, etc. The list here goes on and on. I am sure that if you are a car enthusiast you have heard one of those names before as there is a lot of talk going on about them in the media at the moment. Driverless cars are definitely a thing of the future and that future might be closer to us than we all think.
A driverless car does not have to mean that there is no human input involved at all. This brings us to the point that we all agree that there are different levels of self-driving cars: some of them use a lot of human input, while some of them, the more advanced ones, can almost drive themselves.
The concept of a self-driving car is definitely not a new one and as a matter of fact dates back to at least the 1920s when the first systems for robot cars started being designed and to the 1950s when first testing started taking place. Most people agree though that the first truly automated car was developed in 1977 by Japan’s Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, which is not a surprise as the Japanese are the pioneers in the technology.
In the UK it is the Conservative party who pushes for driverless cars to hit the road even as soon as 2021. In reality, such cars are not expected to appear on British roads before 2030 as there is a lot of testing that still has to be made and public awareness is an issue that needs to be dealt with as well. In the meantime, even as we speak different car makes are equipped with different levels of autonomous features that many drivers on the British roads can already enjoy.
The development and implementation of autonomous cars on British roads is definitely something that is worth following for the next couple of years or decades. One of the best thing you can do, if you are interested in the topic, is to follow one of the blogs that deals with the topic of driverless cars. This way you will always stay abreast of the latest developments in the industry and never miss out on anything important.