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It is becoming a car industry parlour game to predict when fully driverless cars will arrive on the roads.
预言完全无人驾驶的汽车将何时上路，正成为汽车业的猜谜游戏。
Audi chairman Rupert Stadler, whose company just topped a record 149mph with a fully self-driving RS7 sportback, says drivers will be able to take their hands off the wheel by 2016. A year later, Volvo will put 100 self-driving cars on the streets of Gothenburg, Sweden, with the aim of getting a fully autonomous vehicle on the market by 2020.
奥迪(Audi)的全自动驾驶RS7掀背轿跑车刚以149英里的时速刷新了纪录。该公司董事长鲁珀特•施塔德勒(Rupert Stadler)称，到2016年驾驶员将能够从手动操控汽车中解放出来。一年后，沃尔沃将向瑞典哥德堡(Gothenburg)的道路投放100辆自动驾驶汽车，目标是在2020年向市场推出完全自动驾驶的汽车。
Research group Gartner says that, by 2030, autonomous-enabled vehicles will make up about 25 per cent of passenger cars in mature markets. Consultancy Roland Berger says “wide adoption” could follow soon after, creating a market worth $60bn for carmakers, parts suppliers and tech companies.
研究公司高德纳(Gartner)称，到2030年，自动驾驶的汽车将在成熟市场的乘用车部分占据约25%的份额。咨询公司罗兰贝格(Roland Berger)称，“普及”可能在那之后很快到来，为汽车制造商、零部件供应商及科技公司创造600亿美元的市场。
But Stefano Aversa, co-president at the AlixPartners consultancy, says completely autonomous vehicles will never happen. “You cannot think of something that is fully autonomous in any situation – you would never be able to cover the infinite possibilities,” he says. “You have a pedestrian coming from your left, a bicycle on your right, a kid, a cat . . . or simply a speed bump or a hole in the ground.”
但是，咨询公司艾睿铂(AlixPartners)的联席总裁斯特凡诺•阿维萨(Stefano Aversa)表示，完全自动驾驶的汽车永远不可能出现。“你想不出在任何情况下都能完全自主操作的系统——你永远不可能覆盖无限的可能性，”他称，“你左边过来一名行人，右边出现一辆自行车，一个小孩，一只猫……或者只是一个减速带或地上的一个坑。”
Self-driving cars have been heralded as the answer to problems from tedious roads and congestion to traffic accidents – more than 90 per cent of which are caused by human error. Numerous companies and cities have conducted trials. Google has clocked up almost 1m miles of testing on public roads in the US and four cities in the UK will host pilot projects early in 2015.
自动驾驶汽车被誉为解决乏味驾驶、拥堵及交通事故（超过90%的事故由人为错误导致）等问题的答案。很多公司和城市进行了试验。谷歌(Google)在美国公共道路上完成了接近100万英里的试车里程，英国4座城市也将在2015年初启动试点项目。
But technical and legal experts are increasingly concerned that the frenzied excitement surrounding the technology is obscuring the significant obstacles that lie in the way of the introduction of autonomous vehicles.
然而，技术和法律专家日益担心，围绕该项技术产生的狂热兴奋，掩盖了引入自动驾驶汽车过程中的重大障碍。
For a start, driverless vehicles are only allowed on the road in four US states. They are also outlawed in Europe, though a recent amendment to the UN’s Vienna Convention on road traffic means 72 countries, including in Europe and the Americas, can implement rules to allow a car to drive alone for periods.
首先，美国只有4个州允许无人驾驶汽车上路。它们在欧洲也不被法律认可，尽管联合国的《维也纳道路交通公约》(Vienna Convention on Road Traffic)近期的一项修订意味着，包括欧洲和美洲在内的72个国家可以实施法规，允许汽车在特定期间自主驾驶。
But road traffic laws still require the driver to be able to take control of the vehicle and override autonomous functions.
但是道路交通法律仍然要求司机有能力控制车辆，手动超越自动驾驶功能。
“That contradicts the visions and fantasies of those who promote autonomous cars,” says Stephan Appt, legal director in Germany for Pinsent Masons, the law firm.
“这与自动驾驶车辆倡导者的愿景与幻想是抵触的，”品诚梅森律师事务所(Pinsent Masons)德国法律总监斯蒂芬•爱普特(Stephan Appt)称。
“To sleep, to watch movies – that would not be possible at the moment, because you are required always to remain in control.”
“开车时睡觉、看电影——现在不可能实现，因为你必须一直保持对车辆的控制。”
According to Ruth Graham, a partner at UK law firm BLM, there are key areas of civil and product liability that would need to be addressed before driverless cars became possible.
英国BLM律师事务所的合伙人露丝•格雷厄姆(Ruth Graham)认为，在无人驾驶汽车成为可能前，需要解决民事及产品赔偿责任一些关键领域的问题。
For instance, in an accident, insurers would need to assess whether the driver or the manufacturer was responsible for an accident. The incident would be complicated further if the crash involved the driver of a conventional, non-autonomous vehicle.
比如，在一起事故中，保险公司需要评估：是驾驶人还是制造商要对事故负责？如果这起事故还涉及传统的非自动驾驶车辆，那将变得更复杂。
Even criminal liability will need to be looked at, Ms Graham says. “Would it still be an offence to be in your driverless car drunk or drugged?”
格雷厄姆称，甚至刑事责任也需要得到考虑。“如果你醉酒或吸毒后坐在无人驾驶车辆内，是否仍构成违法行为？”
One way of keeping the driver alert even in autonomous mode is to use eye and head-tracking smart sensors in the cabin, something being worked on by General Motors.
一种让驾驶员保持警觉（甚至在自动驾驶状态下）的办法，是在车内应用追踪眼睛和头部动作的智能传感器，通用汽车(General Motors)正在研究这项技术。
But this and other elements of autonomous vehicles – the ultimate connected cars – raise questions about data protection. Dashboard cameras, for instance, are banned in Germany, where the sharing of footage is seen as a violation of other road users’ privacy.
但是，这项技术以及自动驾驶车辆（超级互联互通的汽车）的其它元素，引发了种种数据保护问题。举个例子，仪表盘摄像头在德国是被禁止的，在德国，分享道路行驶的视频画面构成对其他道路使用者隐私的侵犯。
Would drivers own the data produced by the vehicles, or would manufacturers? Could data collected by onboard “black boxes” be sold to insurers? “Who will be permitted to take the data out of the black box?” asks Mr Appt.
驾车者和制造商两方面，谁拥有车辆生成的数据？由车载“黑匣子”收集的数据能否被出售给保险公司？爱普特问道，“谁将拥有从黑匣子读取数据的权利？”
Technical experts also think mainstream manufacturers are further off developing the systems that would facilitate a fully autonomous car than the hype would suggest. Numerous so-called advanced driver assistance systems have already been incorporated in cars, such as automatic braking and adaptive cruise control – which adjusts speed according to the car in front.
技术专家也认为，主流汽车制造商研发全自动汽车配套系统的进展，与炒作所暗示的相距甚远。很多所谓的“高级驾驶员辅助系统”(ADAS)已被集成至新款汽车，例如自动刹车和自适应巡航控制（根据前方车辆的动态调整车速）。
But the leap to complete autonomy is a step beyond. Some industry insiders say the carmakers, though investing large amounts of capital, will have to buy in the technology or form joint ventures if they wish to achieve their lofty hopes for driverless cars.
但是，要实现自动驾驶这一飞跃，仍是当前难以企及的。一些业内人士认为，虽然投入大量资金，但如果想实现无人驾驶汽车的远大理想，汽车制造商将不得不购买技术或者组建合资企业。
The quality of the technology is crucial, because cars, as sophisticated computers, could be vulnerable to hackers.
技术质量至关重要，因为汽车就像精密的计算机一样，可能易于受到黑客攻击。
Hugh Boyes, cyber security expert at the UK’s Institution of Engineering and Technology, says: “If we have a hacker community starting to target vehicles, you can imagine a fair amount of chaos. You just have to look at what happens in London when one vehicle breaks down on a main artery of the city.
英国工程技术学会(Institution of Engineering and Technology)的网络安全专家休•博伊斯(Hugh Boyes)称：“如果我们遇到一个黑客群体开始攻击汽车，你可以想象会有多么混乱。你只要看看一辆汽车在伦敦的主要道路上抛锚时的情景。”
“So, if just one in 100, one in 1,000 is interfered with and ceases to operate as planned, we can expect mayhem.”
“因此，只要黑客能够干扰百分之一或千分之一的车辆，使其发生故障，我们就会看到一团糟的局面。”
