Audi beat out other car manufacturers Tuesday to become the first to get a permit from the state of California to test drive autonomous cars on public roads.
New state laws allowing the testing of automated driving also went into effect the same day.
“Audi is a driving force behind the research taking automated driving from science fiction to pre-production readiness,” Scott Keogh, president of Audi of America, said in a statement.
According to a press release, Audi has conducted research over tens of thousands of miles in Europe and U.S. states where such testing is permitted to develop a highly-automated Piloted driving system for freeway traffic conditions. Audi hopes to launch the new technology to consumers within five years.
In the past, California has allowed limited use of its roads for automated vehicle testing. The state legislature, led by Sen. Alex Padilla, passed legislation to establish new guidelines for autonomous testing which Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2012.
Regulations Audi will have to abide by include a minimum $5 million surety bond for each driverless car that's tested. Other states that allow automakers to test driverless cars include Michigan, Florida and Nevada.
Calling California “a global technological leader,” Padilla said that “driverless vehicle technology has the potential to revolutionize driving, reduce traffic accidents and save lives."
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"We are living in the era of Moore’s Law where every two years we double our computer processing speeds," Padilla said. "This enables the exponential leaps in advanced technology.”
Google, Audi, BMW, Ford and GM have been developing driverless cars for several years. Google's self-driving cars gave logged more than 700,000 test miles on California's roads so far.
