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Opinion I am pretty sure that Uber’s announcements over the past couple of years around building a centre of expertise in driverless vehicles did not come as a surprise to anybody interested in these technologies.

Though Uber hasn’t clearly mentioned why it would hire a few hundred engineers or buy a startup to support its driverless capability development, as it has done since then, the reason is quite straightforward: replacing more than one million freelance taxi drivers and...

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There are still a few years remaining before fully driverless cars will hit the road in significant numbers. Speed of adoption of this technology will depend on how fast the industry and governments can break down the barriers to adoption.

The financial barrier

One of the main barriers to adoption is cost. In 2010, Google’s self-driving technology cost around

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In the last year, unmanned cars have made the headlines throughout the world and the idea that cars could be driven solely by computers came as a shock for many. The reality is that driverless vehicles have been around for some time, both in railway and PRT operations; and analysing how driverless technology has been implemented there, should help understand how this technology will be brought to market and the hurdles that the automotive industry will face.

Taking into consideration key...