Driverless cars, when and if they’re perfected, won’t require as much protective weight since crashes would be greatly reduced. That will somewhat restrain the costs of this new machine, but there are other reasons why the hardware won’t be prohibitive once the software is a reality. It will cost more initially, but perhaps not as much as expected. From Alex Davies at Wired:

The cost of self-driving cars isn’t often discussed, mostly because we’re still years from commercial production, and because there are much tougher questions to answer before we can talk money. But a new report on the market for and development of self-driving cars, by the Boston Consulting Group, offers some estimates. And partly thanks to that affordable hardware, they’re not that high.

According to the group’s research, urban and autopilot will each add about $5,500 to a car’s price tag. You can have a car that parks itself for an extra $2,000. If you want full autonomy—the ability to drive anywhere, with no human input—get ready to add $10,000 to the price tag, at least in the first 10 years the technology’s on the market.

“The technology is already there,” says Xavier Mosquet, head of Boston Consulting Group’s North America automotive division.

Hardware falls into three categories: sensors, processors, and actuators. Given the high level of electronics in today’s car, actuators—the bits that allow a computer to physically do things like brake, change gears, and steer—don’t pose a problem.•