(a) No vehicle shall be advertised as an autonomous vehicle unless it meets all of the following
requirements:
(1) The vehicle meets the definition of an autonomous vehicle specified in Vehicle Code
section 38750 and section 227.02(d) of this Article.
(2) The vehicle was manufactured by a manufacturer licensed pursuant to Vehicle Code
section 11701 also holding a valid autonomous vehicle manufacturer’s permit issued
pursuant to this Article at the time of the vehicle’s manufacture.
(b) Terms such as “self-driving”, “automated”, “auto-pilot”, or other statements made that are
likely to induce a reasonably prudent person to believe a vehicle is autonomous, as defined,
constitute an advertisement that the vehicle is autonomous for the purposes of this section and
Vehicle Code section 11713.
"The manufacturer shall be responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle, including compliance with all traffic laws, when the autonomous vehicle is operating in autonomous mode within its approved operational design domain."
The California DMV has it right. Self-driving cars are allowed, but if a manufacturer screws up, they have to pay all damages and may forfeit their $5 million bond. If they screw up badly, DMV can pull their license to sell or test self-driving cars.
There's practical stuff in there, such as coordinating with the California Highway Patrol with a plan for moving a stalled autonomous vehicle. (How to turn it off. How to get it to release the brakes for towing. Can it be pushed? Stuff like that.)
This answers a key question about autonomous driving:
Can I ask my car to go above speed limit (because I casually do, and I want to project that on my car, rather than admitting I am reckless)?
Answer is a clear No.
What makes that hypothetical interesting is that that kind of situation will almost always be the other driver's liability. So an autonomous driving manufacturer has no legal liability reason to handle it. But when morality comes into the picture it gets a lot more cloudy (what if it accelerates over the speed limit to avoid an accident, if only to crash into another car and make the accident worse?)
The manufacturer and the driver both need accident insurance. It's entirely possible that there will be bundled deals, especially on leased vehicles, where insurance comes with the car.
That could change economics a lot. I don't know what the average American driver pays for car insurance.. $80 a month? I would assume with good tech the big makers could self insure for a lot less... Leasing a car with no insurance required makes the lease payment $80+ cheaper...
As long as conventional operation is possible the owner and driver will need insurance. We are quite a ways off from fully autonomous vehicles with no conventional operation at all.
Tesla has created a subsidiary to sell auto insurance, which makes sense since they have all the telemetry from your vehicle to properly rate your safety as a driver (whereas other legacy insurance companies only have rough statistics about you and your recorded driving record; yes, some coax you with an OBD device for lower rates, but Tesla has a granular corpus about how you drive daily).
It'd make sense, if you're a safe driver, to contract with Tesla for insurance, but a traditional insurance company if you'd rather not have vehicle data tip them off that you have a lead food and so forth. Yet another revenue stream for Tesla.
The Progressive folks gave a talk at a data science conference I attended about their big pile of OBD data, and it turns out that the only data that matters (to an insurance company) is how often drivers break hard.
This is actually pretty good news, because that's easy to measure and teach.
Here's part of the relevant section that other news outlets are trumpeting:
§227.54. Manufacturer’s Permit to Test Autonomous Vehicles that do not Require a Driver.
A manufacturer desiring to conduct testing of autonomous vehicles capable of operating without the presence of a driver inside the vehicle on public roads in California shall submit an application for a permit to conduct driverless testing to the department on Autonomous Vehicle Tester (AVT) Program Application for a Manufacturer’s Testing Permit- Driverless Vehicles, form OL 318 (New 9/2016), which is hereby incorporated by reference. Notwithstanding the requirements of sections 227.04, 227.18, 227.20, 227.22, 227.32, 227.34 (a) through (d), and 227.40 (a)(2) and (a)(3), and 227.46 a manufacturer may conduct testing of autonomous vehicles capable of operating without the presence of a driver inside the vehicle on public roads in California if all of the following requirements are met:
And then follows a long list of requirements that must be met before a manufacturer can test those vehicles without a driver.
Can individual towns / municipalities issue rules on top of state regulations?
I assume a private community with private roads (and private maintenance not state funded ) can forbid vehicles from their roads (via a gate,guard or regulation) as they do now.
227.90. Statements About Autonomous Technology
(a) No vehicle shall be advertised as an autonomous vehicle unless it meets all of the following requirements:
(1) The vehicle meets the definition of an autonomous vehicle specified in Vehicle Code section 38750 and section 227.02(d) of this Article.
(2) The vehicle was manufactured by a manufacturer licensed pursuant to Vehicle Code section 11701 also holding a valid autonomous vehicle manufacturer’s permit issued pursuant to this Article at the time of the vehicle’s manufacture.
(b) Terms such as “self-driving”, “automated”, “auto-pilot”, or other statements made that are likely to induce a reasonably prudent person to believe a vehicle is autonomous, as defined, constitute an advertisement that the vehicle is autonomous for the purposes of this section and Vehicle Code section 11713.