Who cares about trust, grade of traveling & quality of user experience in a world of autonomous cars?

Abstract

Autonomous, driverless, or self-driving cars have an incredible presence in news today. Even if much of the announcements is speculative and 'hyped', my expectation for the future of transport is, that autonomous cars will become the mainstream of individual mobility. Until the actual day come, a lot of problems have to be solved as two different parties clash: Proponents of driverless cars suggest that they will allow for throughput/economic optimization, safety improvements, and more leisure time for the drivers while the antagonists argue against as driving will be boring and driving experience will be low, cars will not address individual driving behavior, and the system (network of cars, backbone infrastructure) is susceptible to faults and abuse. In this position paper, I summarize -- from my point of view -- the "grand challenges" that could permit or prevent proliferation of driverless cars on large scale.