Autonomous vehicle interesting stories of the year

There have been some interesting studies and experiments done on self-driving cars in the last year or so. Here is a top list of some of the more interesting ones:

• Impact of autonomous vehicles technology on climate change. Models show that carbon emissions can be reduced by up to 30% if we achieve a 40% adoption of autonomous vehicles with current fossil fuel technology
• 450 Americans who represent the demographic makeup of the United States were asked: When will autonomous vehicles hit the mainstream? 45% of the people said that they believe that autonomous vehicles will be mainstream by 2030
• Ford’s Mcity is a fake city located in Michigan and was purpose-built to test autonomous vehicle technology. China though has a step up as they are building entire cities for the sole purpose of testing automation technologies.
• Communications from vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure greatly simplify the decision-making of autonomous vehicles. There’s been a lot of experiments with very low-speed parking lot systems where the cars are going a few kilometers an hour. The experiments show that if everyone was hands-off on the steering wheel the parking garage can empty quickly.