How Reporters Can Evaluate Automated Driving Announcements

Abstract

This article identifies a series of specific questions that reporters (as well as policymakers, academics, and others) can ask about claims made by developers of automated motor vehicles (“AVs”). Its immediate intent is to facilitate more critical, credible, and ultimately constructive reporting on progress toward automated driving. In turn, reporting of this kind advances three additional goals. First, it encourages AV developers to qualify and support their public claims. Second, it appropriately manages public expectations about these vehicles. Third, it fosters more technical accuracy and technological circumspection in legal and policy scholarship.

Keywords: automated driving, automated vehicles, autonomous driving, self-driving, driverless, automation, autonomy, journalism