Do self-driving cars have an Australian future?
Isabella Higgins: Austin, Texas has become the latest U.S. city to trial self-driving taxis. Robo-taxis are slowly being rolled out across several American cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles. So how long will it take before these automated cabs are on Australian roads? Angus Randall reports.
Dave Lee: Here it says fasten seatbelt to continue. Okay. Oh wow. That’s cool.
Angus Randall: American influencer Dave Lee is among the first to trial Tesla’s self-driving taxi service in Austin, Texas. For the moment, a Tesla employee is still in the passenger seat, ready to take over in case something goes wrong.
Dave Lee: It kind of is reassuring a bit, knowing that there’s a person, another person in the car kind of looking out after you.
Angus Randall: Tesla is a little late to the robo-taxi world. Google’s parent company Alphabet is already operating autonomous taxis in four cities across the United States. Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the company will roll out thousands of vehicles within months. But experts doubt most Americans will be taking a robo-cab anytime soon. We are not there yet. Hussein Dia is a professor of future urban mobility at Swinburne University. He says the Austin trials may look impressive, but there are a few constraints.
Hussein Dia: It is what we call geo-fenced area. So the area would have been mapped. They know exactly where everything is.
Angus Randall: You probably have some automation in your car already. It might brake if it senses an obstacle, or adjust its cruise control to the speed of the car in front. Professor Dia says the kind of automated driving where you only have to take the wheel in an emergency is a while away, at least on a mass scale.
Hussein Dia: We need really another major breakthrough in AI to make these vehicles mimic human behaviour and thinking.
Angus Randall: The United States and China have been the main testing grounds for autonomous vehicles so far. Australia is unlikely to adopt this cutting-edge technology until laws change.
Hussein Dia: Our current regulations don’t allow for hands-off. The regulations say that there needs to be a driver behind the wheel.
Angus Randall: Neil Sipe is an honorary professor of planning at the University of Queensland. He says the quality of Australian roads may also be a barrier.
Neil Sipe: We need to get our roads up to par to make sure that there are not only centre lines but side line markings as well for all roads because otherwise vehicles are not going to be able to navigate.
Angus Randall: Despite the barriers, he believes the technology and the regulators will get there, eventually.
Neil Sipe: The more rides, the more incident-free rides we have with these companies that are doing the robo-taxis. I think that’s a good thing and I think that if we have more of that happening then you’ll get some acceptance, particularly from regulators.
Angus Randall: The federal government is working with the National Transport Commission on an automated vehicle safety law. It undertook public consultation on the issue last year.
Isabella Higgins: Angus Randall reporting.