Challenges for and with Autonomous Vehicles: An Introduction

The deployment of autonomous vehicles has been announced for years. Yet, full autonomous vehicles are not on public roads. Elon Musk, speaking at an event during the first half of 2020, stated that his firm will be able to present a fully autonomous vehicle technology by the end of the year. This statement is met with skepticism, especially because several of the challenges that existed have not been solved. Road traffic laws have not been adjusted to face the reality of driving by an autonomous machine. The only way that full autonomous vehicles can hit public roads is through test procedures. There also exists quite some uncertainty on who should be liable for accidents with autonomous vehicles. Accidents may occur, and this is something that adversarial machine learning is showing. Even with the best set of sensors, the interpretation of the sensed environment may be misinterpreted. Connectivity is being suggested as a possible solution to several of the problems autonomous vehicles are facing. Deploying autonomous vehicles will also challenge business organization, as car manufacturers may turn their business vehicles into mobility service providers. This may require a different type of organization within the firm.