Anthony Foxx: ‘US government’ announces $4 billion self-driving car programs

US secretary of transportation Anthony Foxx unveiled a six-month initiative to prepare for an era of self-driving cars, at a press conference at the Detroit auto show today (Jan. 14). He also announced a new $3.9 billion initiative from the Obama administration’s 2016 budget to encourage self-driving car programs over the next decade.

Foxx aims to set policies for self-driving cars before President Obama leaves office at the end of this year. Many experts believe that the U.S. will see a surge in autonomous vehicles by 2020.

The initiative is part of a larger agenda outlined by Obama during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday to build what he dubbed a “21st Century transportation system.”

Currently, there are no federal guidelines for self-driving cars in the U.S., but many states are starting to look into the issue. California’s Department of Motor Vehicles recently introduced regulations that would require a human to be inside a self-driving car and insist the vehicle have a steering wheel built in.

Silicon Valley companies including Tesla, Google and even Apple have some serious skin in the game. In October, Tesla released version 7.0 of the Model S software which enabled the vehicle’s self-driving capabilities. Tesla’s car is not fully autonomous and auto-steer is still a “beta” feature. Tesla owners are being told to keep their hands on the wheel while function is on.

Google revealed earlier this week that it is seeking partnerships with several automakers for its self-driving cars. Almost every automaker “has been in to speak with us, if only to understand where we are,” John Krafcik, CEO of Google’s self-driving car project, said, according to Bloomberg. “I don’t know how many we’ll end up having.”

Yahoo Autos reported in late December that Google and Ford would enter into a joint venture to build self-driving vehicles with Google’s technology. The announcement was expected at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, but the companies made no specific mention of the deal.

Even Apple is getting in on the rush, although the company won’t confirm it’s working on a self-driving vehicle. But Tesla CEO Elon Musk said earlier this week that there’s no question that Apple is developing an electric car.

“Well, it’s pretty hard to hide something if you hire over a thousand engineers to do it,” Musk told the BBC. “This is an open secret.”

Apple met with DMV officials to discuss the laws and regulations surrounding self-driving vehicles in California in September. Just last week, Apple registered three domain names, including apple.car, apple.cars and apple.auto.

Agencies/Canadajournal