Justin Pritchard

California regulators have unveiled a roadmap that would let consumers begin using self-driving cars, though manufacturers would have to prove the emerging technology is safe before a licensed driver could get chauffeured around town. The approach California’s Department of Motor Vehicles offered Wednesday in precedent-setting draft regulations is cautious, though it does allow that Californians could be behind the wheel of a self-driving car by 2017. Among other safety-related requirements, the cars must have a steering wheel, and a licensed driver must be ready to take over if the machine fails. Google, which is pushing to get cars without...

New cars that can steer and brake themselves risk lulling people in the driver’s seat into a false sense of security — and even to sleep. One way to keep people alert may be providing distractions that are now illegal. That was one surprising finding when researchers put Stanford University students in a simulated self-driving car to study how they reacted when their robo-chauffer needed help. The experiment was one in a growing number that assesses how cars can safely hand control back to a person when their self-driving software and sensors are overwhelmed or overmatched. With some models...

Traveling by plane, train or automobile can be a headache. Mixing in Thanksgiving can make it a throbbing migraine. Technology provides some pain relief in the form of apps to let you know which roads are clogged, what gate your flight leaves from and whether trains are running on time. The American Automobile Association forecasts that the Wednesday through Sunday period will see more than 46 million Americans travel at least 50 miles from home — the most Thanksgiving road warriors since 2007. About nine in 10 are expected to drive — or be driven — with about 3.6...

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) will build a car without a steering wheel. It doesn’t need one because it drives itself. The two-seater won’t be sold publicly, but Google said Tuesday it hopes by this time next year, 100 prototypes will be on public roads. Though not driving very quickly — the top speed would be 25 mph. The cars are a natural next step for Google, which already has driven hundreds of thousands of miles in California with Lexus SUVs and Toyota Priuses outfitted with a combination of sensors and computers. Those cars have Google-employed “safety drivers” behind the wheel...

The concept sounds like something from the comic books that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk read religiously as a boy: a capsule that speeds along as fast as sound, carrying people between major cities, never troubled by bad weather or turbulence. If Musk has his way, this will be a reality within a decade. Coming from almost anyone else, the hyperbole would be hard to take seriously. But Musk has a track record of success. He co-founded online payment service PayPal, electric luxury carmaker Tesla Motors Inc. and the rocket-building company SpaceX. On Monday, he unveiled a transportation concept that...