The many benefits
of self-driving cars

To fully grasp the benefits of self-driving cars, they need to be driven outside of protected test environments. There are many conditions a self-driving car would need to navigate: snow, ice, extreme heat, rush hour traffic, tight curves, and construction zones, for example. There are some potential features that autonomous self-driving vehicles may never fully realize—or that may at least come about well into the future—but self-driving cars need to be able to perform well in the most basic conditions in which they will likely be driven.

While safer highways (achieved by cutting down on the number of distracted drivers) may be one of the most obvious of the benefits of self-driving cars, here are some other advantages these vehicles have to offer.

Because the amount of time certain truck drivers can drive in one day is regulated, there can be a lot of downtime in the normal work day. High functioning self-driving vehicles can boost productivity; and in the future, the highest level of self-driving cars could allow humans to use their vehicle almost as an office.

Test runs in the trucking industry have found that self-driving semi-trucks are able to go long distances in less time. Even though truckers will have to be involved in driver-assisted vehicles, there is speculation that required rest periods will shift and allow truckers to extend their driving day.

The maps self-driving vehicles use have to be different from those humans use when driving. A human needs to know certain things, like where to turn and what road to take. An autonomous vehicle doesn't instinctively know where traffic lights are or how many lanes are on a highway.

One of the benefits of self-driving cars is the ability to create high-definition maps of the surrounding area with location software in real time. Maps could even include dynamic traffic and weather information, updated dynamic speed limits, the locations of road work and more.

GPS often cuts out just when it's needed most. Self-driving vehicles can't take that risk, since they need directions fed to them at all times.

A British company, Oxbotica, developed a system that relies on radar, cameras and lasers to decrease reliance on GPS and allows the vehicle to have a guidance system in satellite dead zones. This means that whether a vehicle travels through a dense forest where the sky isn't visible or a cloudless stretch over an open road, the code doesn't need to change and the system knows exactly where it is at all times.

One of the benefits of self-driving cars could be a rise in better satellite technology, and those advancements could extend to other devices that use satellite systems.