Automaker Concerns with California Autonomous Vehicle Policy –

California is struggling to get it right, that balance between near-unfettered business regulation and a over-control of a burgeoning new set of technology and system integration that will literally redefine ground mobility from top to bottom.  Automakers aren’t happy, but this is reflective of a very awkward period where public policy and technology development are not yet in synch.  It will happen but we predict that there will be a period of five or so years that are quite uncomfortable.

In the US, some other states have taken different paths in defining the rules for vehicle testing and on-road prototype development.  And other states have taken no specific action yet.  And the US federal government has set its own overarching framework.  As our firm works on automotive projects, some states have talked to us about trying no regulation at all.  And that’s just the US…  Europe has its own issues, as a whole and separately.  Britain has a different plan.  France, Germany, Denmark and Sweden for example have different thinking again.  (See: Self-driving cars hit European speed bump)  And then there’s Asia, which just happens to be the largest prize over the long-term, with China, Japan and Korea trying to figure this out as well.

It’s interesting to watch this and the various forces that are shaping public policy in very different ways.  In some places the emphasis is first and foremost on safety – more of a g0-slow conservative approach. In other places it’s that but with a strong dose of hope to establish that state or country as an economic center for the automotive industry.  And as mentioned above, some places have floated that little or no regulation might be possible.  The thinking is that “if we relax the rules, over time automakers will look kindly upon us and invest in supply chain assets here providing us regionalized economic development.”

This is all pretty complicated and probably more complex than just that. For example, off-road, closed circuit testing is important and in fact many of the growing list of carmakers and want-to-be carmakers are telling us that they are finding it difficult to find places to do certain kinds of closed circuit testing.  Some in the auto  industry are happy to use shared facilities for some testing and some are not.  But in the end, the industry is highly competitive and need for proprietary testing and development centers is quite real.

Real world field testing and development is vitally important to the evolution of the sector that represents an enormous component of the global economy and fundamentally there needs to be a common framework for carmakers and their technology partners. If North America, Europe and Asia can get their individual acts together in terms of the underlying regulatory structure for next-generation ground mobility the largest supply chain in the world would be unleashed to create vast new levels of  economic activity.