Sacramento Eases Into the Self-Driving Scene

Quick, think of a California hotbed of technological might. There, in the heart of Sacramento, you will find the curving, brown building where the city's officials are working to woo the self-driving industry. And it seems to have attracted a mate: Today, Sacramento rolls out a partnership with Phantom Auto, a company dedicated to building remote-driving solutions for self-driving vehicles. Because self-driving cars are far from ready to handle all road situations, remote-driving is the not-so-secret secret of the autonomous vehicle industry. "The practical reality is you cannot deploy these vehicles without the human in the loop right now," says Elliot Katz, a co-founder of Phantom Auto.