Modern automobiles collect around 25 gigabytes of data per hour and autonomous vehicles are expected to generate more than 100 times that number. In comparison, the Apollo Guidance Computer assisting in the moon launches had only a 32-kilobtye hard disk. Without question, the breadth of in-vehicle data has opened new possibilities and challenges. The potential for accessing this data has led many entrepreneurs to claim that data is more valuable than even the vehicle itself. These intrepid data-miners seek to explore business opportunities in predictive maintenance, pay-as-you-drive features, and infrastructure services. Yet, the use of data comes with inherent challenges: accessibility, ownership, security, and privacy. Unsettled Legal Issues Facing Data in Autonomous, Connected, Electric, and Shared Vehicles examines some of the pressing questions on the minds of both industry and consumers. Who owns the data and how can it be used? What are the regulatory regimes that impact vehicular data use? Is the US close to harmonizing with other nations in the automotive data privacy? And will the risks of hackers lead to the “zombie car apocalypse” or to another avenue for ransomware? This report explores a number of these legal challenges and the unsettled aspects that arise in the world of automotive data. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio. https://doi.org/10.4271/EPR2021019

Facial recognition software (FRS) is a form of biometric security that detects a face, analyzes it, converts it to data, and then matches it with images in a database. This technology is currently being used in vehicles for safety and convenience features, such as detecting driver fatigue, ensuring ride share drivers are wearing a face covering, or unlocking the vehicle. Public transportation hubs can also use FRS to identify missing persons, intercept domestic terrorism, deter theft, and achieve other security initiatives. However, biometric data is sensitive and there are numerous remaining questions about how to implement and regulate FRS in a way that maximizes its safety and security potential while simultaneously ensuring individual’s right to privacy, data security, and technology-based equality. Legal Issues Facing Automated Vehicles, Facial Recognition, and Individual Rights seeks to highlight the benefits of using FRS in public and private transportation technology and addresses some of the legitimate concerns regarding its use by private corporations and government entities, including law enforcement, in public transportation hubs and traffic stops. Constitutional questions, including First, Forth, and Ninth Amendment issues, also remain unanswered. FRS is now a permanent part of transportation technology and society; with meaningful legislation and conscious engineering, it can make future transportation safer and more convenient. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio. https://doi.org/10.4271/EPR2022016

The automotive industry appears close to substantial change engendered by “self-driving” technologies. This technology offers the possibility of significant benefits to social welfare—saving lives; reducing crashes, congestion, fuel consumption, and pollution; increasing mobility for the disabled; and ultimately improving land use. This report is intended as a guide for state and federal policymakers on the many issues that this technology raises.

Data privacy questions are particularly timely in the automotive industry as—now more than ever before—vehicles are collecting and sharing data at great speeds and quantities. Though connectivity and vehicle-to-vehicle technologies are perhaps the most obvious, smart city infrastructure, maintenance, and infotainment systems are also relevant in the data privacy law discourse. Facial Recognition Software and Privacy Law in Transportation Technology considers the current legal landscape of privacy law and the unanswered questions that have surfaced in recent years. A survey of the limited recent federal case law and statutory law, as well as examples of comprehensive state data privacy laws, is included. Perhaps most importantly, this report simplifies the balancing act that manufacturers and consumers are performing by complying with data privacy laws, sharing enough data to maximize safety and convenience, and protecting personal information. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio. https://doi.org/10.4271/EPR2024011

A suite of recent policy and legislative initiatives are prioritizing a shift towards electrification of the personal-use vehicle fleet. This agenda is intimately tied to another complex issue: the sustainability of the primary transportation funding source (i.e., the gas tax—also known as the motor fuel tax). What makes this particularly hard is that gasoline consumption is only a proxy for “amount of travel.” With diversification in fuel sources and a concerted movement towards non-fossil fuel sources to power vehicles, any specific fuel source would be (at best) a weak or (at worst) grossly inequitable representation for amount of travel. Toward an Integrated Transportation Pricing Approach Using Vehicle-based Technologies will focus on some of the larger questions for an integrated pricing system based on miles driven that are measured directly using vehicle-based or in-vehicle technology communicating directly with infrastructure systems. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio. https://doi.org/10.4271/EPR2024003

This book takes a look at fully automated, autonomous vehicles and discusses many open questions: How can autonomous vehicles be integrated into the current transportation system with diverse users and human drivers? Where do automated vehicles fall under current legal frameworks? What risks are associated with automation and how will society respond to these risks? How will the marketplace react to automated vehicles and what changes may be necessary for companies? Experts from Germany and the United States define key societal, engineering, and mobility issues related to the automation of vehicles. They discuss the decisions programmers of automated vehicles must make to enable vehicles to perceive their environment, interact with other road users, and choose actions that may have ethical consequences. The authors further identify expectations and concerns that will form the basis for individual and societal acceptance of autonomous driving. While the safety benefits of such vehicles are tremendous, the authors demonstrate that these benefits will only be achieved if vehicles have an appropriate safety concept at the heart of their design. Realizing the potential of automated vehicles to reorganize traffic and transform mobility of people and goods requires similar care in the design of vehicles and networks. By covering all of these topics, the book aims to provide a current, comprehensive, and scientifically sound treatment of the emerging field of “autonomous driving".

The current business model of the automotive industry is based on individual car ownership, yet new ridesharing companies such as Uber and Lyft are well capitalized to invest in large, commercially operated, on-demand mobility service vehicle fleets. Car manufacturers like Tesla want to incorporate personal car owners into part-time fleet operation by utilizing the company’s fleet service. These robotaxi fleets can be operated profitably when the technology works in a reliable manner and regulators allow driverless operation. Although Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) models of private and commercial vehicle fleets can complement public transportation models, they may contribute to lower public transportation ridership and thus higher subsidies per ride. This can lead to inefficiencies in the utilization of existing public transportation infrastructure. MaaS platforms can also cause a reduced reliance on parking infrastructure (e.g., street parking lanes and parking garages) which can contribute to an improvement in overall traffic flow, and a reduction in capital investment for commercial and residential real-estate development. Urban planning can be better centered around the true mobility needs of the citizens without sacrificing valuable space for vehicles that are inactive most of the time. A key challenge is the transition phase where traditional forms of car ownership and transportation coexist with new forms of mobility services (before true MaaS platforms are fully optimized). Another fundamental issue is determining the true cost of car ownership and establishing ideal cost structures for on-demand mobility services in order to replace the need of owning a car. This needs to occur without compromising subsidized public transportation which provides affordable transportation for low-income groups. NOTE: SAE EDGE™ Research Reports are intended to identify and illuminate key issues in emerging, but still unsettled, technologies of interest to the mobility industry. The goal of SAE EDGE™ Research Reports is to stimulate discussion and work in the hope of promoting and speeding resolution of identified issues. SAE EDGE™ Research Reports are not intended to resolve the issues they identify or close any topic to further scrutiny. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio. https://doi.org/10.4271/EPR2019004

The Autonomous Vehicle (AV) has been strongly heralded as the most exciting innovation in automobility for decades. Autonomous Vehicles are no longer an innovation of the future (seen only in science fiction) but are now being road-tested for use. And yet while the technical and economic success and possibilities of the AV have been widely debated, there has been a notable lack of discussion around the social, behavioural, and environmental implications. This book is the first to address these issues and to deeply consider the environmental and social sustainability outlook for the AV and how it will impact on communities. Environmental and social sustainability are goals unlike those of technical development (a new tool) and economic development (a new investment). The goal of sustainability is development of societies that live well and equitably within their ecological limits. Is it reasonable and desirable that only technical and economic success comprise the swelling AV parade, or should we be looking at the wider impacts on personal well-being, wider society, and the environment? The uptake for AVs looks to be lengthy, disjointed, and episodic, in large measure because it faces a range of known unknown risks. This book assesses the environmental and social sustainability potential for AVs based on their prospective energy use and their impacts on climate change, urban landscapes, public health, mobility inequalities, and individual and social well-being. It examines public attitudes about AV use and its risk of fostering a rebound effect that compromises potential sustainability gains. The book concludes with a discussion of critical issues involved in sustainable AV diffusion.

Over the last 100 years, the automobile has become integrated in a fundamental way into the broader economy. A broad and deep ecosystem has emerged, and critical components of this ecosystem include insurance, after-market services, automobile retail sales, automobile lending, energy suppliers (e.g., gas stations), medical services, advertising, lawyers, banking, public planners, and law enforcement. These components - which together represent almost $2 trillion of the U.S. economy - are in equilibrium based on the current capabilities of automotive technology. However, the advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and technologies like electrification have the potential to significantly disrupt the automotive ecosystem. The critical cog governing the rate and pace of this shift is the management of the test and verification of AVs. In this SAE EDGE™ report, six senior industry leaders in the impacted ecosystems essay articles which describe sectors of the current automotive ecosystem and the manner in which AV technology can potentially reshape them - providing a mosaic of the massive infrastructure shifts which will be required to absorb AV technologies. NOTE: SAE EDGE™ Research Reports are intended to identify and illuminate key issues in emerging, but still unsettled, technologies of interest to the mobility industry. The goal of SAE EDGE™ Research Reports is to stimulate discussion and work in the hope of promoting and speeding resolution of identified issues. SAE EDGE™ Research Reports are not intended to resolve the issues they identify or close any topic to further scrutiny. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio. https://doi.org/10.4271/EPR2019005