SELF-DRIVING cars are in a constant state of development, with numerous companies including Tesla, Audi and Volvo (as well as technology giants such as Apple and Google) pouring millions of pounds into making the autonomous car technology roadworthy. Will it see a major shift in employment and work culture? Is the driver or the manufacturer liable in the event of an accident? How will legislation and layouts be changed to make self-driving cars compatible with UK roads? Auto Express has investigated the world of driverless car technology, to bring you the answers about the cutting edge of mobility.

Anthony Levandowski, shown here during a briefing at a garage owned by his self-driving truck company Otto, which Uber bought in 2016. The U.S. Department of Justice has begun a criminal investigation into Uber's use of a software tool that helped its drivers evade local transportation regulators, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters. SAN FRANCISCO -- Uber suffered a potentially major setback in a court case that could affect the development of self-driving cars Thursday night when the judge referred the case to the U.S. Attorney for an investigation into the possible theft of trade secrets by an Uber executive. In the ruling, Judge William Alsup said the case must stay in court and not go to a private arbitrator as Uber had wanted. "The court takes no position on whether a prosecution is or is not warranted, a decision entirely up to the United States Attorney," Alsup wrote in his order.

AUTONOMOUS cars are just around the corner. Cities across the world are rolling out pilots of driverless vehicles, and soon motorists in Germany will be able to relax on the autobahn as their cars drive them from Munich to Berlin (see "London is set for driverless car roll-out – so what comes next?"). In other words, we are on the brink of a transport revolution as potentially radical as the one that began in 1908 with the Model T Ford. By 1931 the automobile's transformative power was so clear that Aldous Huxley imagined the people of his Brave New World worshipping Henry Ford as the creator of their dystopian society. Huxley was on to something. The Ford revolution changed Western society.