Background: What Are Autonomous Vehicles?
In recent years, self-driving autonomous vehicles have gone from science fiction to reality. In San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin, riders over the age of 18 can order a Waymo through the Uber app and be taken to their destination by a driverless taxi. In Phoenix, a linked teen account allows 14-17 year olds to call themselves a Waymo as well. Although the operating range of these vehicles remains restricted to the specific boundaries of their metro areas, they otherwise have total freedom within their service range. Mobileye, another autonomous vehicle company, has begun testing driverless cars in Miami.
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) come in differing levels of autonomy, based on a zero-to-five scale. A car with an AV rating of zero requires a driver to be fully alert and in control of the car at all times, only having momentary assistance features such as automatic emergency braking. A car with an AV rating of five is entirely self-driving, so passengers have no driving responsibility. Waymos—AVs that operate independent of human control but within a limited service area—are considered level four AVs.
Level four+ AVs such as Waymo vehicles are not available for public purchase. You may be familiar with Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” mode available in their newer vehicles, which, despite its name, is only a level two on the AV scale since it still requires drivers to be actively paying attention to the road at all times—even while the car does the driving without human input. Mercedes is the first company to offer a level three AV for commercial purchase, which allows drivers to focus on other tasks while the car drives itself, but only in very specific, favorable driving conditions and on extensively mapped out freeways in California and parts of Nevada.
AV Regulations in the U.S.
Currently, legislation regarding AVs is very mixed on the state level. 19 states fully permit AV operation, 17 states do not reference AVs at all, 12 states allow AVs but only for testing or piloting, and 3 states have their own special case laws. Within the states that permit AV operation, the majority of language is focused on specifying the permitting process and regulatory steps for classifying AVs when on the road, rather than specifically outlining where they are and are not allowed. Among states with language around AVs, there are further inconsistencies over whether AVs have been legalized entirely or only at the commercial level. California is unique in that it opened its regulations on AV testing and deployment to public comment. As of today, the state has two regions where Waymo is permitted to operate: Los Angeles and the San Francisco Peninsula.
There is so far little federal policy regarding the deployment of AVs. In fact, there are no federal laws passed yet that specifically mention AVs at all. On May 15, 2025 the “Autonomous Vehicle Acceleration Act of 2025” was introduced, but has not yet passed the Senate. The bill would not make any changes to state regulations, but rather outlines a roadmap for supporting and implementing AVs safely onto American roads. Importantly, it only refers to level four and five AVs, which are still not available for public purchase today. Numerous companies are already in the space (Waymo, Mobileye, Tesla, Cruise), and with the global AV market size calculated at over $270 billion in 2025 and only expected to rise further, it is almost certain that AVs will continue to assert themselves into the transportation space.
Arguments For Autonomous Vehicles
Those in favor of autonomous vehicles point to the safety benefits AVs have the potential to bring to American roadways. Many studies to date have shown that AVs get into fewer road accidents than human drivers, though they are still not perfect. However, it cannot be said with absolute certainty that AVs are safer due to their limited implementation across America. Individual passenger safety is another major advantage of driverless taxis. While major ridesharing apps such as Uber report extremely high levels of sexual assault on passengers from their drivers, proponents of AV taxis say that this is not an issue if riders can call for a taxi without a driver at all. For women, children, and other groups most likely to be survivors of abuse, the option to call a driverless vehicle can be incredibly reassuring.
Moreover, advocates highlight that personal AV use has the potential to reduce traffic congestion through coordinating processes such as platooning. Platooning AVs can communicate with one another on the roads to instantaneously brake and accelerate at the same time as one another, removing traffic delays caused by human reaction times. AVs communicating with one another on a large scale would also be able to change and merge lanes more quickly than human-driven cars, removing another major cause of congestion.
Personal use AVs would also be able to valet park themselves, which proponents argue would allow for significant street redesign that could focus on bicycle, delivery, and pedestrian infrastructure.
Proponents argue that AVs can positively affect the environment as well. The vast majority of AV development projects use cars that are entirely electric, which naturally have no tailpipe emissions compared to gas-burning vehicles. A decrease in traffic would also allow for fewer gas vehicle idling and inefficient gas use during start and stop traffic, which would additionally decrease tailpipe emissions and positively impact the environment.
Private companies also have reason to support AVs. Personal AVs could free up their owners to work during their commute to and from work, live further away from their job, and possibly even shorten the workday, according to a McKinsey consulting report. Autonomous trucking also has great potential to reduce shipping costs and address the shortage of truck drivers in the U.S., a significant benefit to companies who need their products shipped nationally.
Arguments Against Autonomous Vehicles
Even without widespread AV adoption, commute times are already getting longer on average. Critics caution against the notion that AVs will reduce congestion, arguing that personal AV use would increase commute times as people become more willing to have a long commute since they are able to do tasks other than driving while in their car. This increased tolerance of long commutes could lead to greater urban sprawl, which is correlated with increased energy use, pollution, traffic congestion, and wildlife habitat destruction.
Another important issue surrounding widespread AV adoption is the question of liability during a traffic accident. Without clearly defined legislation that outlines whether the fault in an AV accident is placed on the AV company, the vehicle’s owner, any involved pedestrians, or a combination of these groups, the unknown liability of owning an AV presents a big issue. The minimal legislation that is currently present at the state and federal level regarding this issue makes the question even more open-ended. On top of that, people already blame AVs for accidents at a higher rate than humans, even when AV fault isn’t supported by the facts of the individual incident.
As this suggests, AVs do not have American public opinion on their side. An AAA survey from February 2025 found that around six out of ten Americans are still afraid to ride in a self-driving car. Only 13 percent of respondents said that they fully trust AVs, which is up from nine percent in 2024 but down from 15 percent in 2022, indicating that trust in AVs is not on a steady incline.
The guarantee made by many AV proponents of decreased parking times is also uncertain. In areas where parking is expensive or hard to find, AVs could aimlessly circle blocks waiting for their owner to come back rather than paying for parking. Naturally, this could cause a significant increase in urban traffic, externalizing the cost of parking to drivers throughout the city. Pedestrians, knowing AVs will stop and human drivers might not, could cross at will and make streets impassable for vehicles, also contributing to traffic within cities.
Conclusion
AVs will almost certainly continue to play a larger role in our lives as Americans due to the massive capital investment the industry has received. The specific impacts they will have, however, remain very unclear. As an emerging transportation option, it is very difficult to predict the effects at this time. These impacts will be based very heavily on the legality, price, and overall availability of level four and five AVs for the general public. Most consequences of AVs can also be interpreted negatively or positively. The enabling of longer commutes could be bad for the environment and urban sprawl, but good for individuals who are already facing long commutes and now have time freed up.
People are generally skeptical of AVs and reluctant to implement them in their daily life, but that could change once the technology is more widely understood. State and federal policy, most of which is undeveloped, will be the primary determinant in how AVs impact our lives in the future.