The History of the Self-Driving Car [Infographic]

Nowadays, the technology is advancing so fast, and we all manage to get used to new terms even faster. So, the self-driving car notion doesn’t seem to be odd and weird. Moreover, we will perceive autonomous cars as normal ones in the nearest future.

Nevertheless, Kevin Ashton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Auto-ID Center founder, author of the book “How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery”, says that  in 15 years, almost everybody will use self-driving vehicles. Plus, the recent study conducted by the World Economic Forum shows that people are ready to try autonomous cars. The large number of customers appear to be willing to buy and use a self-driving vehicle.

So far, the industry doesn’t stay still, and according to  Wall Street Journal, by the year 2020, Nissan, Toyota, and Honda plan to roll out their first driverless cars that bring either revolutionary improvements in transportation or new challenges. In addition to that, Nvidia introduced Nvidia Drive PX 2, a new powerful computer developed to allow cars driving in an autonomous mode. The new engine was presented during a CES 2016 conference last week.

Well, the most interesting thing is that the self-driving car notion dates back to the 1920s. The infographic you see below embraces the evolution of autonomous cars from the 1920’s to 2016. The infographic also shows customers’ concerns with the self-driving cars and the laws that are not so fast to embrace this phenomenon.

So, in December, California proposed state regulations that would require all autonomous cars to have a steering wheel, throttle and brake pedals when operating on California’s public roads. A licensed driver would need to be in the driver’s seat ready to take over in the event something went wrong, reads IBN Live.

It’s a known fact that driverless cars are still not being used on a large scale. However, soon there will be more self-driving cars on the road than the human driven ones.

Author: Eugenia Romanenko

Eugenia graduated from Minsk State Linguistic University with a degree in Intercultural Communication, Translation/Interpretation (Italian, English). Currently she works as a business analyst, freelance interpreter and tutor. She’s fond of numismatics, photos, good books and sports, adores travelling and cooking.