Campus Shuttles Want to Speed Ahead in the Autonomous Vehicle Race

Google, Apple, Tesla, Ford, Honda: For major players in the autonomous vehicle race, 2020 has emerged as the target date. A few have indicated they’ll have products ready to go sooner than that, but with government regulators scrambling to keep up, it’s unlikely you, as a member of the public, will have an opportunity to climb aboard much earlier. In December, draft regulations released in tech-heavy California suggested the state might soon allow autonomous vehicles to operate on roads—but only if a licensed driver remains behind the wheel.

Which is why campuses are so exciting to people like Alex Rodrigues, a co-founder of Varden Labs. His company, and others producing driverless shuttles like it (there are a few of them), see inroads on university, office, and assisted living campuses where streets are shielded from many of the inconveniences of government oversight.