High-Tech Cars May Soon Be Talking To Each Other

As ever-smarter cars hit the road in California, one tech question carmakers face is exactly how they’ll talk to each other.

Earlier this month, California’s DMV proposed rules to allow cars without drivers inside at all. And in a future full of of high-tech cars, building in a way for them to talk to each other could boost efficiency and safety.

Bryant Walker Smith, a Stanford affiliate scholar specializing in technology and law, says this could let a single trucker lead a “platoon” of automated big rigs down the highway.

“We could possibly see all kinds of new interesting applications that people simply haven’t thought about yet,” Smith says.

Smith says in time, such technology could improve safety and allow cars to coordinate in traffic.

The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration could soon require future cars come with standardized communication hardware. That proposal is up for public comment through mid-April.