The Road to Automated & Connected Cars Is Not a Straight One

• Author: David Canton
• Date: March 20, 2019

It seems that everyone is doing studies or adopting positions on automated/connected cars these days. That is understandable given the potential ramifications on subjects including safety, ability to function in adverse weather, infrastructure, traffic, public transit, cybersecurity, data volumes, privacy, liability, insurance, ethics, and jobs.

Level 5 (fully autonomous) self driving cars may not arrive for many years. Depending on who you ask, they are somewhere between a couple of years and a couple of decades away. Level 2 (cars with some driver assist tech like automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control) cars are common today.

Transport Canada has details about current driver assist technology and recently released a report called Canada’s Safety Framework for Automated and Connected Vehicles.

The Canadian Senate issued a report on the topic a year ago.

A group of Canadian Transport Ministers recently released a report called Automated and Connected Vehicles Policy Framework for Canada. It provides policy principles for testing and deployment, and describes regulatory issues that need to be addressed.

Automated and connected cars will have ramifications that will affect far more than just automakers. Hopefully all the attention being paid to this by automakers and policymakers will help address the issues in a positive way.