What’s real and what’s not in “self-driving?” Which advances have near-term applications, and which vehicles are driving themselves already? In Part 1, we quantify the enormous size of the transportation industry, and how that size means there’s no reason to exaggerate autonomy claims: partial autonomy and unrelated technology advances are making a big difference in everything from energy sources, to safety, to infotainment, and to utilization rates.

In Part 2, we’ll review the history, challenges, and over promises in vehicle autonomy. In Part 3, we’ll discuss recent progress and prospects for widely available, substantially autonomous vehicles. We’ll look at advances and leaders.

This 3-part segment is a companion to our publication, Driverless Cars are Mostly Fake News, but the real parts are Big News to which you can subscribe here.

02. (1/3) Tech & Cars: the Big News