On Friday, I attended a presentation on the future of automated cars at VSI in St. Louis Park. We were told about the status of current technology and expectations going forward. For the most part, current self-driving vehicles are at a level 2 and it is level 4 vehicles that will be the ones that will provide the performance we really need.
In another room, there were screens showing simulations of a car driving on a roadway under a variety of conditions. One fact that is important, the camera shows essentially what we see, so we still need to concentrate on decent striping, adequate signage, and good infrastructure.
One question to consider is whether the use of automated cars will increase the number of cars on the road and what will that mean to our transportation system. Another is how long will it for autonomous cars to be widely accepted.