Self-driving cars could be introduced on Irish roads in a controlled rollout, experts say If you believe Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, fully autonomous self-driving cars have been only a few years away for nearly a decade now, however, progress in the area has been very slow given the difficulty of the challenge it presents and the severe consequences that could result if something goes wrong. In the US, companies have been working on the problem for years with some rolling out driverless taxi programmes across major cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, and Heuston. Earlier this week, Uber said users could sign up for a chance to ride in London's first robotaxis as soon as regulators give the go-ahead for launch. Uber said the cars will use technology from British start-up Wayve to drive themselves round the English capital's streets, but will initially have trained operators sitting behind the wheel monitoring the system. In addition, Tesla has its supervised driver assistance software authorised in Belgium, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia and Denmark. However, this is not a fully autonomous driving software that has long been promised by the US electric carmaker. Tesla has also reportedly been in talks with the Irish Government to get its driver assistance software approved here. Read More Professor of electrical and electronic engineering at the University of Galway, Martin Glavin, who has for years been working on the technology that helps cars see better, said he believes autonomous vehicles should be allowed onto Irish roads in a controlled manner as the technology behind them is “very good” and getting better every day. Prof. Glavin also works with the Connaught Automotive Research (CAR) Group, which is based out of the University of Galway and is affiliated with Lero, the Research Ireland Centre for Software.