Legalizing Level 4 autonomous driving could place Japan in pole position to lead the world in advancing the rollout of the technology. The nation's National Police Agency has announced that it aims to create a legal framework for Level 4 self-driving cars operating within limited areas. This move follows Germany's push to lead the way in Europe allowing Level 3 automated driving by changing federal legislation in summer, a move that echoed Japan's own change of law to allow Level 3 driving for the Honda Legend sedan in April 2021. These changes in law allow the disconnection of the human driver from mission critical operations during certain portions of a journey when the automated functions are activated. The latest move, If approved by the legislators in Japan, should lead to the commercialization of Level 4 self-driving cars in shared mobility, where vehicles can operate without human interaction.

The Russian government has issued a detailed plan of legal changes in support of AV testing and the launch of commercial use on public roads, without a safety driver in the cabin. The legislative work on the plan, initiated in mid-2020, was given a powerful boost early this year, the federal ministry of transportation stated in a press release back in March. The program "will set the regulatory conditions for inclusion of autonomous vehicles into the transportation system in the period from 2021 to 2024" in a way that "ensures safety of road users and compliance with the existing norms and rules". The ministry has had consultations with technological companies Yandex and Sber, truckmakers Gaz and Kamaz and oil company Gazprom Neft, all major benefactors of the legal changes. These companies, as well as a number of smaller AV developers and potential consumers, have often claimed to be ready for the wider use of AVs when legislation allows.

Waymo claimed last week that its autonomous vehicles are outperforming human drivers. In a report it compiled, between January 2019 and September 2020, the company's fleet of AVs logged 6.1 million miles in Phoenix, Arizona. Sixty-five thousand of those miles were without a safety driver behind the wheel. Waymo says that its fleet was not responsible for a single accident in that entire time. There were 18 minor accidents in which AVs were involved.

Former Waymo and Uber self-driving car-whiz kid, Anthony Levandowski was sentenced last week to 18 months in federal prison for stealing trade secrets. Levandowski will also pay a $95,000 fine and $756,499.22 in restitution to Waymo. He co-founded Google's self-driving car program, now Waymo, in 2009 and served as the program's technical lead until January 2016, when he left to co-found self-driving truck start-up Otto. Seven months later Uber acquired Otto for $680M and named Levandowski the head of its self-driving car division. He was on top of the tech world. He appeared in Wired Magazine as the go-to voice in Silicon Valley for self-driving cars and LiDAR technology.

Self-driving start-up backed by Toyota has transformed its robo-taxi fleet into a driverless grocery delivery service last week. The move came in response to the ongoing lockdown in California and the heightened need for essential goods amid the Coronavirus pandemic. The start-up, Pony.ai, is partnering with e-commerce site Yamibuy on the initiative and its fleet consists of 10 self-driving electric Hyundai Konas. The outfit had been participating in a robo-taxi pilot in the city of Irvine, California, since November 2019 but was forced to ground its fleet in March owing to the state's lockdown orders. Now the vehicles will run delivery trips from Yamibuy's distribution center to residences, condos and apartment complexes in Irvine.

The governments of most countries around the world are willing, if not necessarily eager, to aid in the development of advanced-level assisted driving. Yet, India is not'most countries'. In mid-2017, the country's transportation minister Nitin Gadkari said bluntly that his government "will not allow driverless cars in India." Why? "We are not going to promote any technology or policy that will render people jobless." This categorically states the government's worry.

A private hire firm has called for standardization of regulation across all local authorities to ensure safety in future robo-taxi services. The call came in an interview with TU-Automotive by Andrew Wescott, head of regulatory and external affairs at Addison Lee, as he revealed the company's finding from the MERGE Greenwich project that carried out simulated autonomous vehicle ride-sharing trials in south-east London and sought consumer opinion. Wescott said the project showed that a set of national standards for private hire operators should be introduced across the UK and a national database of licensed private hire drivers to be set up. He said: "There are some authorities that are, let's say, a bit freer in licensing and others that are a bit stricter." While admitting several trials of this type are currently being staged in the UK, he said: "The important thing for us is there's a national approach that is then implemented at a local level. Because otherwise you might get some challenges in terms of the way you operate and also the way in which the transport system itself works. We're not going to go overnight from manual to autonomous, there'll be a staged process. Also, there'll be a need to integrate that with existing transport networks. That needs that level of national structure first."