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59927.3
Force Information-Sharing
$5,000,000 in the form of a certificate of insurance, a certificate of self-insurance, or a
surety bond [3]. While this approach is promising, these heightened insurance requirements
should apply to all vehicles rather than merely to automated vehicles undergoing testing.
As the section of the same name argues below, such regulation should “raise the playing
field” for conventional as well as automated vehicles.
27.3 Force Information-Sharing
27.3.1 Privilege the Concrete
Product development requires understanding, and as necessary shaping, external forces like
law. If specific legal obligations, restrictions, or liabilities are impeding automated vehicle
technologies, then would-be developers of those technologies should challenge those con-
straints. In short, they should identify the specific legal changes that they or their products
require – and support these arguments with concrete data and careful analysis. If they do
not, policymakers should ask why.
Although concerns have been raised for decades about the product liability implications
of increasing vehicle automation [17], automakers tend to refer only broadly, if at all, to
this potential challenge even as they announce plans to deploy increasingly advanced auto-
mation features. This apparent disconnect suggests either that the technologies themselves
are not as imminent as popularly believed [22] or that the companies pursuing those tech-
nologies are not as concerned about general product liability as is commonly suggested.
In contrast, automakers have acted to address a more narrow liability question related
to the installation or modification of automation systems. Several state legislatures have
now clarified that, to quote Michigan law [12], manufacturers and subcomponent producers
are “not liable and shall be dismissed from any action for alleged damages resulting from”
such third-party installations or conversions “unless the defect from which the damages
resulted was present” at the time of manufacture. This provision is largely a restatement of
common law [22] and, like common law, does not unambiguously contemplate every
potential modification claim.1
Notwithstanding this uncertainty, this experience demonstrates that established auto-
makers can recognize potential legal issues, propose specific legislative remedies, and –
with the exception of California [34] – obtain their enactment. To the extent that automated
vehicles depend on changes to vehicle codes [19], insurance requirements, or rules of
liability, regulators should expect well-reasoned and well-supported arguments from their
high-profile developers.
1 Consider two examples. In the first, the manufacturer fails to warn against a foreseeable modifi-
cation of its vehicle; might that failure to warn constitute a “defect from which the damages re-
sulted”? In the second, the subcomponent producer designs a sensor that is highly vulnerable to
hacking; might that security vulnerability constitute a “defect from which the damages resulted”?
Autonomes Fahren
Technische, rechtliche und gesellschaftliche Aspekte
Gefördert durch die Daimler und Benz Stiftung