Sacto's Autonomous Vehicles Leadership Vision Presented To Silicon Valley

Kings Owner Vivek Ranadivé has big plans for vehicle traffic in Sacramento.

“The goal quite simply is to make Sacramento the capital -- the world capital -- for autonomous vehicles,“ Ranadivé says.

He is joined by Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Congresswoman Doris Matsui in this effort.

Their plan to get there is called the Autonomous Transportation Open Standards Lab, or ATOS for short.

The three met Tuesday with technology and industry leaders, as well as those with safety concerns, including the DMV.

Sacramento will become the first city in the state with Verizon's high-speed 5-G wireless technology, which would be used by vehicles in the project.

Mayor Steinberg says another Sacramento advantage is the city's proximity to the state's lawmakers who will consider regulations.

"Sacramento is the perfect, perfect location,” Steinberg says, “the perfect petri dish to not only test this new technology, but to show how it can be brought to scale."

Congresswoman Matsui says she wants to standardize autonomous vehicle regulations in Washington with those developed at the state capitol. "Because quite frankly,” Matsui says, “it's what we do in California that really does set the standard, and that's what we want to do here."

Plans for ATOS are expected to move quickly.

The King's owner says he wants to have at least 50 people show up in self-driving cars to the team's season opener on November 1.