Car makers to accept liability for self-driving cars

Volvo has accepted that it will face legal liabilities for its self-driving cars when they are put on sale to the general public. Mercedes-Benz and Google also appear to accept that legal burden, but it may be that it's only applicable in the United States.

Volvo boss Håkan Samuelsson has said he “will urge regulators to work closely with car makers to solve controversial outstanding issues such as questions over legal liability in the event that a self-driving car is involved in a crash or hacked by a criminal third party”.

Volvo will accept full liability whenever one if its cars is in autonomous mode, making it one of the first car makers in the world to make such a promise.

Volvo is at the forefront of autonomous vehicle research and will shortly begin trialling customer use of autonomous XC90 SUVs in its home city of Gothenburg in Sweden.

The Gothenburg authorities have put aside 50km of roads for autonomous cars to be tested on and 100 XC90s will be given to local residents to try out and test. The cars alert, through flashing lights, that an autonomous area has been reached and the driver selects the ‘IntelliSafe Auto Pilot’ by pulling two paddles behind the steering wheel. As the car approaches the end of an autonomous area, it will give the driver a 60sec countdown to take control again, and will bring the car to a gentle halt if no action is taken.

While some states have begun to enact licensing laws to allow the use of autonomous cars, there have been many legal issues surrounding their use.

In Europe, and thanks primarily to the Treaty of Vienna, the driver and owner of the vehicle remains in ultimate control, even if the autonomous systems have been switched on. It is the person that pushes the on/off button who takes ultimate responsibility, so the exposure of companies like Volvo would be more limited on this side of the Atlantic.

In the more convoluted American legal system though things are a lot more cloudy, and the declaration by Volvo is probably as much about confidence building as it is anything else. Mercedes and Google followed up Volvo’s comments, telling news programme 60 Minutes that both would accept liability and responsibility for their vehicles, and that both expect fewer and fewer accidents as the technology evolves. That is somewhat backed up by Google’s experience of its self-driving car prototypes, which have been involved in accidents, but in each case the crash was the fault of a human driver in another car.

It will be interesting to see if other car makers follow the legal lead of Google, Volvo and Mercedes and interesting too to see if those three will continue to shoulder responsibility as and when autonomous cars become much more widespread.