“You will be allowed to watch TVs built into the car while driving, assuming the car is capable of driving on its own and that we are ready to intervene if necessary ”: says more or less like this, the announced change to the Highway Code of the United Kingdom which should come into force in the coming months.
It could happen as early as the summer, but there is a condition to respect: it will be possible to do this only on the machines included in the list of Self-driving vehicles listed for use in Great Britain. That it is this, and at the moment it is completely and desolately empty. But how is it possible that it is empty? For example: why are there no Tesla cars, who drive alone with their almost 8,000 euro Autopilot? There are no why non sono self-driving vehicles. Not for real and not as the law understands.
The case
Warning: in San Francisco there is a self-driving car that spies on you
by Vincenzo Borgomeo
12 Maggio 2022
What is (really) a self-driving car
The point is that a car that is able to do some things on its own (keep away from others, follow the road, accelerate, brake and even steer) it is not a car that can drive alone. It is a car capable of helping the driver to driveand the difference is that there is between assisted driving and autonomous driving (in English, assisted-driving and self-driving).
It is true that there are self-driving taxi services in some US cities such as Phoenix and San Francisco (and beyond) and it is also true that, always in the US, there are thousands of robots on wheels delivering packages, mail and food at home, and yet none of the cars on sale right now anywhere in the world are self-driving cars. None, not even the Tesla.
Because? Because they all require not only the presence, but also the attention of a person sitting in the driver’s seat, demonstrated and verified both through the touch sensitive steering wheel be through cameras controlling where he is looking. Maybe these cars would technically be able to fend for themselves in everyday traffic (yes, that’s a really big “maybe”), but the other problem is that right now there is no legal framework anywhere in the world that allows them to be sold and circulated, imagining the consequences of what could happen.
The 5 levels of autonomous driving
To understand the regulatory problems it is first necessary to understand what are the 5 levels of autonomous driving (which in a sense there are six), established years ago by SAE, the Society of Automotive Engineers:
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a Level 0 there is the car as we have known it so far, that is, manually controlled by a person;
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il Level 1 is where it is automated a single functionsuch as cruise control or lane departure;
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the cars with assisted driving of Level 2 they can manage on their own two or more functions at the same time, provided the driver is ready to take over.
These cars can be used without any limitation anywhere in the world and this is where we are now and this is the level where the Tesla models are also found.
Going up, things get more complicated:
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al Level 3all functions are automated and the car can drive completely on its own in some limited scenarios (on the motorway, for example), but the driver must be ready to take control;
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a Level 4the car is capable of driving on its own, always in limited circumstances, but no human intervention is envisagednot even emergency;
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finally there is the Level 5where the car can drive on its own in any scenario and circumstance and no human intervention is required.
ITW 2021
Elon Musk at Italian Tech Week: “Nuclear is not evil”
by Emanuele Capone, Bruno Ruffilli
September 24, 2021
The problem of going up from Level 2 to Level 3
As you may understand, the difference between where we are now and where we could be (another big “maybe”) after 2025 is more regulatory than technological: in the event of an accident with a car up to Level 2, the responsibility lies with the driver; in a car from Level 3 upwards, it could be software, the developer or the car manufacturer.
Which is perhaps why Tesla has determined that its models are all Level 2 (the classification is done by the manufacturers themselves), even if they are more realistically somewhere between 3 and 4. Which Musk’s company knows very wellgiven that online he describes them as capable of “autonomous driving at maximum potential”.
Returning to the UK, the Department of Transport assumes that “By the end of 2022” there will indeed be self-driving vehicles where you can watch television, but many knots will have to be untied first. Above all, a clear regulatory framework must be created that distinguishes assisted-driving from self-driving and helps to establish who is to blame in the event of an accident. And also to understand what the obligations of a driver who does not drive will be, starting from the need or not respect the limits (for example) of alcohol in the blood. Which is a question that many are asking, but to which no one has yet found an answer.