The robot cars are coming to California now, and the rules and regulations covering the automated cars are being drafted.

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He believes partially automated cars like his will help to make it possible for some impairments to be eliminated as barriers to driving.

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Consumer attraction to automated cars will also hinge on potential conveniences.

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Four companies -- Audi, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo -- will have automated cars in the market in the next 12 months noted The New York Times' technology writer John Markoff.

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They're already widely deployed to monitor and control the insides of homes, offices, automated factories, cars, ships and planes.

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Hertz allows customers to rent cars at automated kiosks, just as airlines have for some time allowed passengers to check in without talking to anyone.

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People should retain responsibility for their vehicles to ensure safety, but as cars become ever more automated, the current rules of liability would suppress innovation.

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The lightest ultrastrong automotive materials, carbon-fiber composites, looked too costly for cars until a Rocky Mountain Institute spinoff commercialized an automated manufacturing process that makes complex composite parts in less than a minute.

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Within two years these major European manufacturers, particularly BMW and Mercedes who sell upmarket cars and have the margin to innovate, will have all the components of an automated car on the road, in production vehicles.

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