Concept

Self-driving car

Overview

A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driverless car, robotic car, or robo-car, is a car that is capable of operating with reduced or no human input. They are sometimes called robotaxis, though this term refers specifically to self-driving cars operated for a ridesharing company. As of 2026, the term "self-driving" lacks an agreed standard definition and is also subject to commercial advertising and branding considerations.

In 2020, Waymo was the first to offer rides in driverless taxis in the operational design domain (ODD) of limited geographic areas, but as of late 2025, no system has achieved full autonomy in all domains - sometimes referred to as "Level 5" on a scale of 0 to 5 levels of automation defined by the global standards organization SAE International, or simply "no driver" as given by the classification system proposed by Mobileye in the US.

Following a history of experimentation and development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) after World War II, two main technologies are now primarily used: LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), and visual sensors (cameras) which capture images and video like human eyes. These are combined with systems such as Global Positioning System (GPS), neural networks, artificial intelligence, and established ADAS engineering to deliver levels of driving autonomy.

The primary obstacle to self-driving is the advanced software and mapping required to make them work safely across the wide variety of conditions that drivers experience. However, the software is not yet advanced enough to handle all circumstances and has caused accidents and deaths. Other issues include security of over-the-air updates, legal and regulatory issues, ethics, and consumer confidence. Methods of testing and monitoring the reliability of cars have evolved in parallel with deployment, with various standards being proposed. Implications for urban infrastructure and the economy have also been discussed.

Public perception and acceptance of autonomous cars has been mixed. A survey in 2022 found only 27% of the world's population would feel safe in one. Public acceptance is also influenced by "self-AV bias", where drivers judge identical autonomous vehicle driving much more harshly than human.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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But the very same subject, being on the other side conscious of himself as a thing in himself, considers his existence also in so far as it is not subject to time-conditions, and regards himself as only determinable by laws which he gives himself through reason; and in this his existence nothing is antecedent to the determination of his will, but every action, and in general every modification of his existence…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason
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Up to this point the world is what is called an external, which is here taken to mean (not a world external to the individual, but) a self-externalised world. That is to say, it is the observer who has hitherto by his interpretation of his perceptions supplied the “Spirit in Nature.” In itself the external world has no inside, no centre: it is we who read into it the conception of a life-history. We are led to…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
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Thus the assertion, that all bodily movements, even those which are purely vegetative and organic, proceed from _the will_, by no means implies that they are voluntary. For that would mean that they were occasioned by motives; but motives are representations, and their seat is the brain: only those parts of our body which communicate with the brain by means of the nerves, can be put in movement by the brain…
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature
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Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Eliminative materialism.

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