By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
Rules of the road for driverless cars are framed, set and promoted by the autonomous-vehicle (AV) industry at the state level. Senate Bill 965, just voted out of the Pennsylvania State Senate’s Transportation Committee, is a prime example. The bill offers blanket authorization for testing and deploying AVs with or without safety drivers, establishing a playbook tech companies can use state by state to advance their agenda. Unintended consequences include exposing local communities to unnecessary safety risks, while leaving thorny liability issues to be settled in costly litigation, a burden that hits low-income populations hardest.

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
The AV industry has generally come to accept that the highly automated vehicle market will start with robotaxis, scheduled for rollout one city at a time. Consumer-owned AVs without human drivers are believed to be years — some say decades — away. But Mobileye, whose parent company Intel plans to take it public later this year, is pushing an aggressive timetable for consumer AVs, warning the industry that consumer and industrial AV development must proceed in tandem if both sectors are to succeed. For now, OEMs are left with the daunting task of checking Mobileye’s math.

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?
Positive momentum from 2021 will push the semiconductor market into year-over-year growth. But unforeseen developments from the Covid pandemic, among other factors, call the strength of that upturn into question.