Making Autonomous Vehicles Safer

While self-driving vehicles are beta-tested on some public roads in real traffic situations, the semiconductor and automotive industries are still getting a grip on how to test and verify that vehicle electronics systems work as expected. Testing can be high stakes, especially when done in public. Some of the predictions about how humans will interact with autonomous vehicles (AVs) on public roads are already coming true, but human creativity is endless. There have been attacks on Waymo test vehicles in Arizona, a DUI arrest of a Tesla driver sleeping at 70mph on a freeway, and other Tesla hacks using oranges and aftermarket gadgets to trick Tesla's Autopilot into thinking the driver's hands are on the wheel. But are those unsafe human behaviors any more dangerous than the drum beat of technology hype, unrealistic marketing, and a lack of teeth in regulating testing of AVs on public roads, the factory and the design lab?