When I first started taking autonomous vehicles seriously four years ago, I had two hesitations about them even if the software could be worked out:

1) Would Americans, who have long loved the power of being kings of the road, surrender the wheel any sooner than they’d surrender their guns?

2) Couldn’t a hacker force 300 robocars on a Los Angeles freeway to simultaneously suddenly turn left when they weren’t supposed to?

I think number one has been answered in the affirmative, with driverless vehicles so incentivized financially that the majority of us will choose autonomous and use fleets of robocabs, perhaps sacrificing not just the steering wheel but ownership of the whole car.

The answer to the second question is still in flux and likely always will be, with automakers and software developers needing to stay a mile ahead of the hackers. From Danny Yadron at the Wall Street Journal:

“Tesla is one of the only household corporate names with an official presence this year at Def Con, an annual security conference held in Las Vegas, where attendees try to hack the hotel elevators and press room. The company is here courting hackers who can help it find holes in the software that controls its cars. It’s looking to hire 20 to 30 security researchers from Def Con alone, Ms. Paget says. Moreover, hackers who report bugs to Tesla get a platinum-colored ‘challenge coin.’ If they show up at a Tesla factory and give the security team a heads-up, they get a free tour.

Tesla’s presence at Def Con points to a growing concern among automakers: As they connect vehicles to the Internet, bad guys could find a way in.

In one presentation this week, two researchers showed how some cars, such as Chrysler Group’s 2014 Jeep Cherokee, have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication systems on the same network as their brakes or automatic parallel parking programs. In theory, hackers could infiltrate a car’s communication system to control its physical maneuvers, said Charlie Miller, one of the researchers who has hacked cars in the past.”