The self-driving car has been invented, but is it likely to be widely adopted by as a mode of transport? Will we really buy self-driving cars? Or will we hire them like taxis, or even hop on and off them (or in and out of them) like buses? What would have to change in the way we live our everyday lives in order for us to adopt this strange interloper? And what sort of other things and services might we need to support travelling around in driverless cars?
Some of these questions go so far into the future that we can’t possibly know the answers. So let’s start with what we do know, and that is, perhaps surprisingly, the technology behind a self-driving car.