Terminology
There is some inconsistency in terminology used in the self-driving car industry. Various organizations have proposed to define an accurate and consistent vocabulary. Such confusion has been documented in SAE J3016 which states that “Some vernacular usages associate autonomous specifically with full driving automation (level 5), while other usages apply it to all levels of driving automation, and some state legislation has defined it to correspond approximately to any ADS at or above level 3 (or to any vehicle equipped with such an ADS).”
Words definition and safety considerations
Modern vehicles provide partly automated features such as keeping the car within its lane, speed controls or emergency braking. Nonetheless, differences remain between a fully autonomous self-driving car on one hand and driver assistance technologies on the other hand. According to the BBC, confusion between those concepts leads to deaths.
Association of British Insurers considers the usage of the word autonomous in marketing for modern cars to be dangerous, because car ads make motorists think ‘autonomous’ and ‘autopilot’ means a vehicle can drive itself, when they still rely on the driver to ensure safety. Technology alone still is not able to drive the car.
When some car makers suggest or claim vehicles are self-driving, when they are only partly automated, drivers risk becoming excessively confident, leading to crashes, while fully self-driving cars are still a long way off in the UK.