About four years ago, the Google team trying to develop cars driven by computers – not people – became convinced that sooner than later, the technology would be ready for the masses. There was one big problem: Driverless cars were almost certainly illegal in the U.S.
And yet this week, Google said it wants to give Californians access to a small fleet of prototypes it will make without a steering wheel or pedals.
The plan is possible because, by this time next year, driverless cars will be legal in the tech giant’s home state.
And for that, Google can thank Google, and an unorthodox lobbying campaign to shape the road rules of the future in car-obsessed California – and maybe even the rest of the nation – that began with a game-changing conversation in Las Vegas.
The campaign was based on a principle that businesses rarely embrace: ask for regulation.
The journey to a law in California began in January 2011 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Nevada legislator-turned-lobbyist David Goldwater began chatting up Anthony Levandowski, one of the self-driving car project’s leaders. When talk drifted to the legal hurdles, Goldwater suggested that rather than entering California’s potentially bruising political process, Google should start small.
Here, in neighboring Nevada, he said, where the Legislature famously has an impulse to regulate lightly. It made sense to Google, which hired Goldwater.
Up to that point, Google had quietly sent early versions of the car, with a “safety driver” behind the wheel, more than 100,000 miles (160,927 kilometers) in California. Eventually, government would catch up, just as stop signs began appearing well after cars rolled onto America’s roads a century ago.
If the trigger to act was a bad accident, lawmakers could set the technology back years.
Feeling some urgency, Google bet it could legalize a technology that though still experimental had the potential to save thousands of lives and generate millions in profits.
The cars were their own best salesmen. Nevada’s governor and other key policy makers emerged enthusiastic after test rides. The bill passed quickly enough that potential opponents – primarily automakers – were unable to influence its outcome.
Next, Nevada’s Department of Motor Vehicles had to write rules implementing the law.
At the DMV, Google had an enthusiastic supporter in Bruce Breslow, then the agency’s leader.
Breslow had been fascinated by driverless cars since seeing an exhibit at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Seeing a career-defining opportunity, Breslow shelved other projects and shifted money so he wouldn’t have to ask for the $200,000 needed to research and write the rules.
At first, DMV staff panicked – they only had several months to write unprecedented rules on a technology they didn’t know. But Google knew the technology, and was eager to help.
“Very few people deeply understand” driverless car technology, said Chris Urmson, the self-driving car pioneer lured from academia who now leads Google’s project. Offering policymakers information “to make informed decisions … is really important to us.”
The task fell primarily to David Estrada, at the time the legal director for Google X, the secretive part of the tech giant that houses ambitious, cutting-edge projects. Estrada would trek from San Francisco to Nevada’s capital, Carson City, for meetings hosted by DMV staff.
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