History of self-driving cars

Experiments have been conducted on self-driving cars since 1939; promising trials took place in the 1950s and work has proceeded since then. The first self-sufficient and truly autonomous cars appeared in the 1980s, with Carnegie Mellon University's Navlab and ALV projects in 1984 and Mercedes-Benz and Bundeswehr University Munich's Eureka Prometheus Project in 1987. In 1988, William L Kelley patented the first modern collision Predicting and Avoidance devices for Moving Vehicles. Then, numerous major companies and research organizations have developed working autonomous vehicles including Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Continental Automotive Systems, Autoliv Inc., Bosch, Nissan, Toyota, Audi, Volvo, Vislab from University of Parma, Oxford University and Google. In July 2013, Vislab demonstrated BRAiVE, a vehicle that moved autonomously on a mixed traffic route open to public traffic.

In the 2010s and 2020s, some UNECE members, EU members, as well as the UK, developed rules and regulations related to automated vehicles. Cities in Belgium, France, Italy and the UK are planning to operate transport systems for driverless cars, and Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain have allowed testing robotic cars in traffic.

In 2019 in Japan, related legislation for Level 3 was completed by amending two laws, and they came into effect in April 2020. In 2021 in Germany, related legislation for Level 4 was completed.

On 1 April 2023 in Japan, the amended "Road Traffic Act" which allows Level 4 was enforced.