Riding Into the Driverless Era

Tech Side – “How It Works”

Envision a vehicle with its own perceptual awareness and cognitive intelligence. This captures the essence of autonomous driving: the technology that revolutionises traditional transport with the help of sophisticated sensors, cameras, radar, and LiDAR that enable vehicles to ‘perceive’ their surroundings: traffic signals, pedestrians, lane boundaries, and unexpected hazards like cyclists darting across traffic. These sensory inputs transmit to powerful onboard computers running advanced AI algorithms that function as the vehicle's cognitive center.

The AI involved transcends momentary observation - it's trained on millions of driving miles, enabling it to predict imminent scenarios. For example, when a ball rolls into the street, the system anticipates that a child might follow and prepares to brake preemptively. Machine learning allows continuous improvement with each journey, emulating the way humans develop expertise through accumulated experience.

Industry leaders like Tesla, Waymo (Google), and Cruise (GM) are pioneering this monstrous technological frontier. Tesla's Full Self-Driving Beta program has shown that neural networks can process more than 4 billion miles of real-world driving data. Waymo's robotaxi service in Phoenix is the first commercial use of fully autonomous vehicles without safety drivers. Tesla focuses on camera-based systems with neural networks, while Waymo combines LiDAR with precise mapping. There are five levels of autonomous capabilities, from Level 0 (no automation) to Level 5 (full automation, which means no steering wheels). Most cars on the road today work at Level 2–3, which means they can help with steering and braking but still need a person to be ready to take over if something goes wrong.

Essentially, self-driving technology aims to replicate human capabilities - perceive, process, and react, but with mechanical precision and minimal errors.

Impact Side – “Why It Matters”

Moving on to the impact of self-driving cars, the most widely known advantage of this technology is the reduction in the total number of accidents. An analysis done by one of the largest auto-driving companies in the world - “Waymo” mentions that its vehicles demonstrated a 92 percent drop in pedestrian injuries, an 82 percent decline in cyclist injuries, and 82 percent decrease in motorcyclist injuries. Waymo also logged 96 percent fewer vehicle-to-vehicle crashes at intersections compared to human drivers. The second advantage to this technology is the overall efficiency that it provides, as a result reducing both costs to one’s bank account and to the environment. Starting with the more ‘important’ one, the highly advanced computers controlling autonomous cars allow for a much smoother driving experience with speed and acceleration under control, thus leading to more efficient fuel use, making them a more environmentally friendly alternative in terms of electricity consumed and overall air pollution generated. According to estimates by the ​​US Department of Energy, this driving style, which industry experts refer to as automated ‘eco-driving’, can actually end up reducing fuel consumption by 15 to 20%. Moreover, the great Elon Musk also mentioned the fact that robotaxi rides could reach as low as $0.30 to $0.40 per mile with the Tesla Cybercab at scale. For comparison, the average cost per ride-hailing mile in Western ride-hailing markets is approximately $2.4 compared to that for a personally owned vehicle at approximately $0.70 cents per mile. 

However, living in such a generation has taught us one thing and that is the fact that everything related to technology has a downside. While these cars allow us to imagine something close to a utopian future, people who are actually driving these cars for a living will be easily displaced. It is said that if fully autonomous vehicle tech spreads rapidly, as many as 4 million truck, bus, delivery, and taxi driving jobs could vanish worldwide, surprisingly more than the great recession. This number is just a rough estimate and does not even account for all the supervisory staff, management, and support staff for these driving jobs potentially leading that number to double. Moreover, it is commonly known that hackers exist within our society and it is also true that in the past that security experts looking to exploit flaws in modern automobiles have successfully hacked and been able to take control of a Tesla Model S and a Jeep Cherokee. A driverless car would be entirely controlled by computer hardware and software and hence a malicious attacker could easily find and exploit security holes in any number of complex systems to take over a car or even cause it to crash purposefully.

There’s always been a special thrill in cars - the smell of a brand-new vehicle, the first long drive with friends, the family road trips where the journey mattered as much as the destination. Owning a car has never just been about getting from one destination to another; it has been about freedom, pride, and identity. But in a future where you can simply order a driverless car to pick you up, that emotional bond could disappear. Industries like car dealerships and insurance might fade if they don’t adapt, but perhaps the bigger question is: will we, as humans, ever feel the same trust and joy sitting in a machine that drives itself? No matter how efficient the technology, that deep satisfaction in an irrational individual may be harder to automate.

Co-Authored by Raj Shah and Atharv Gupta

23/08/25