Driverless cars are no longer a thing of the future.
Nearly every major car company is working on self-driving technology right now (as are a handful of tech giants like Google and Apple), and driverless cars have been taking part in road tests since as early as 2010.
So far, the results have been very promising. By all accounts, driverless cars are much safer than human drivers, and virtually every reported accident involving a self-driving car so far has been caused by a human.
But despite this stellar track record, one question has remained unanswered: who takes responsibility in the rare case that a driverless car malfunctions?
On Thursday (Oct. 8), Volvo put some of those fears to rest. Speaking in Washington DC, Volvo president Hakan Samuelsson announced that his company would take full responsibility for any accidents caused by flaws in its self-driving cars.
“Volvo wants to remove the uncertainty of who would be responsible in the event of a crash. At the moment it could be the manufacturer of the technology, the driver, a maker of a component in a car,”
Samuelsson told the BBC.
Volvo is preparing to test out a driverless version of its XC90 SUV in Australia in November
Volvo becomes the third major company to make such an announcement, following in the steps of Mercedes and Google.
In his speech, Samuelsson praised the United States for being, “the most progressive country in the world in autonomous driving.” However, he also stressed the need for more clear regulations, saying that the US, “risks losing its leading position” if it fails to come up with a clear system of guidelines for the testing and certification of driverless vehicles.
The current lack of federal regulations means that manufacturers often have to deal with different rules in different states, making it much harder for companies to sell their driverless cars on a national level.
One of the main issues Volvo and other automakers want lawmakers to resolve is what happens in the case of a driverless vehicle being hacked. Earlier this year, a team of hackers showed that even human-operated vehicles are susceptible to attack when they remotely accessed a Jeep and killed it on the highway (after messing with the AC, radio and windshield wipers for a bit).
Samuelsson said that Volvo considers hacking a criminal offense, but added that the company is taking steps to guard against this possibility:
“We are constantly evolving defensive software to counter the risks associated with hacking a car. We do not blame Apple, or Microsoft for computer viruses or hackers.”
Volvo’s move towards driverless technology is part of the company’s Vision2020 plan. The goal of this plan is to eliminate all injuries and fatalities in Volvo cars by the year 2020.
Read more from the BBC and International Business Times.