Language difficulties

As well as making sure the system is failsafe, there's also a lot of work to do on coming up with a single standard for these and other systems.

The next logical step, after all, would be for cars to know where other cars are, with vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, so they can avoid each other and be redirected around the road network for maximum efficiency in an intelligent transport system.

If more than one programming language is being used, an Audi might be speaking the equivalent of Dutch to a BMW and no-one would benefit.

Steering groups are in place to try and reach a common ground, so we don't have another VHS versus Betamax format war, and when this becomes reality we can expect these technologies to flourish.