Side by Side: Who May Call a Car Self-Driving?

Today’s letter covered one renaming. The monk asked around: who lets a car drive itself, and who merely lets it say so?

United States

The federal road-safety agency is blunt. No car a consumer can buy today goes beyond Level 2, and the person in the driver’s seat is responsible for the driving. California went further on the vocabulary. Its motor vehicle department adopted a judge’s finding that “Autopilot” was misleading, and Tesla dropped the word from its California marketing in February to keep its licences.

Germany and the EU

Germany allows the most. Mercedes may let Drive Pilot do the driving at up to 95 km/h on the whole Autobahn network, 13,191 kilometres of it, at Level 3. Tesla’s software reached Europe the other way round: cleared first by the Dutch regulator, then by seven more members, with a vote for the whole union slipped to December at the earliest.

United Kingdom

Britain has written the dictionary before the cars. From 7 January 2027, eight terms, among them “self-driving,” “driverless” and “autonomous,” are reserved for vehicles authorised as such. None is yet. Misleading a buyer can bring an unlimited fine and up to two years in prison.

China

Last year, according to reports of a regulator’s meeting, carmakers were told to stop saying “autonomous” or “intelligent driving” and to say “assisted driving” with the level attached. The first Level 3 permits followed in December: one car up to 50 km/h in Chongqing’s traffic jams, another up to 80 km/h in Beijing, both on designated stretches only.

Japan

Japan made Level 4 legal in April 2023, for permitted services with a remote supervisor, not for private cars. The first approval went to seven-seat carts in Eiheiji. Its Level 3 private car came earlier: the Honda Legend of 2021, 100 units, lease only, ¥11 million apiece.

Australia

Australian law does not yet allow automated vehicles on public roads, and no date is set for the law that would. The naming question has not come up. There is nothing yet to name.

Verdict

Germany lets the car drive and is careful with the word. Britain guards the word with prison and has no car to say it about. China renamed everything “assisted” and then licensed the traffic jam. America keeps the driver responsible and the dictionary honest, one state at a time. The machines are much the same everywhere. Only the vocabulary is sovereign.