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Self-driving autonomous cars may change the way people travel. The study predicts that by 2025 8 million autonomous self-driving or semi-autonomous vehicles will be on the road1. More than 80 companies are testing around 1,400 autonomous self-driving vehicles, meanwhile, 55% of Americans believe that most cars will drive themselves by 2029. This change will have far-reaching economic and social consequences. Modern vehicles already have advanced automation capabilities, such as adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance. If self-driving technology controls the steering wheel and pedals, then technology will also take critical decisions instead of human drivers. It is needless to mention that society accepts that humans are not perfect but expects self-driving vehicles to be flawless and must save lives through appropriate decision-making (Anderson et al., 2018). Its impact further widens as the traditional insurance industry is based on driver’s liability, but self-driving vehicles no longer have a driver. So, who will be held responsible in the event of a crash? Self-driving vehicles are becoming a reality of the future; hence, these self-driving vehicles may expose automotive vehicle manufacturers and suppliers to significant liabilities in the event of a road accident or crash.
In addition, automotive manufacturers often end up recalling many parts if they do not identify with trust and transparency whether the issue is with a specific part, a specific supplier, or with all parts. Identification of any of the participants of the automotive industry incorrectly may cause major setbacks in terms of revenue earning. Thus, there is a critical need for backtracking in the automotive industry so that it can be identified who manufactured the defective/failed part and why it failed. Such backtracking will not only safeguard the many parties involved in the automotive manufacturing process, but also improve the overall quality of the manufactured part because allegations of manufacturing/supplying defective parts may be proven by available data, thus significantly preventing crashes in the future caused by similar reasons.
Figure 1. Crash rate per million miles
Each year, 1.35 million people lose their life in road accidents globally caused by human-driven vehicles2 due to the relatively higher reaction time of human drivers. However, self-driving autonomous cars can theoretically react much faster. Also, self-driving autonomous cars are free from human distractions like texting while driving, looking at hoardings, sleepiness, and drunken driving. Figure 1 shows self-driving car accident statistics3 for the United States for the period of 2018-2022. Level 1 represents vehicles that are controlled by a human driver with some assisting technologies; Level 2 represents vehicles that have partial automation for acceleration and steering but the human driver also remains engaged; and Level 3 represent vehicles that have conditional automation where the human driver is not required to monitor the environment but should take control on notice. It is clearly visible from the data in Figure 1 that crash rates for autonomous cars are lower in all levels of vehicles.
In future cars, technology will make decisions for human life and safety, which will cause a paradigm shift in the responsibility of liability from the human driver to the vehicle manufacturer. To keep continuing hassle-free business, vehicle manufacturers or Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) need to protect themselves from wrong/false claims of liability by some irrefutable data that can meet the law of the land and upcoming regulatory compliances. However, existing information systems lack the production of such irrefutable data across the supply chain. Hence, OEM will find it difficult to fix the liability in the event of an AV crash. Traditionally, the flow of information in the automotive supply chain for human-driven vehicles is decided by requirements from vehicle manufacturers who focus only on the forward flow of information (Uzair, 2021). As implied by Figure 2, AV manufacturers need end-to-end reverse traceability to protect themselves from any wrong/false liability.