WASHINGTON: The death of a woman in Arizona struck by a self-driving car with no human control, the first fatality involving a fully autonomous vehicle, is an event the nascent industry has long dreaded and comes at a sensitive time. Monday's accident involving an Uber Technologies Inc car is shaping up as the first significant test of how policy makers and the public will respond to the new technology. The incident occurred as companies have been pushing for regulatory clearance to offer self-driving car ride services as soon as next year. On Friday, Uber and Alphabet Inc's Waymo car unit had written U.S. senators urging them to approve sweeping self-driving car legislation "in the coming weeks." Automakers and technology companies such as Uber, General Motors Co and Toyota Motor Corp have made substantial investments that hinge on significant revisions to existing vehicle safety regulations written under the assumption that a licensed human would always be in control of a vehicle. Auto and technology industry officials have warned that there could be accidents and deaths involving self-driving cars, but they have said countless additional lives would be saved as robotic systems programmed to obey traffic laws took over for distracted, sleepy or impaired human drivers. Mark Rosenker, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said on Monday the public should not overreact to the Uber incident. He noted that 6,000 pedestrians and nearly 40,000 people die annually on U.S. roads in more than 6 million crashes annually. "This is going to be a unfortunate obstacle that we are going to have to deal with to regain (the public's) belief that these devices are safe," Rosenker said. The incident prompted Uber to suspend all testing of self-driving cars. The immediate impact of the fatality may be to further delay or change a landmark bill pending in Congress to speed the testing of self-driving cars that was already stalled by objections from a handful of Democrats over safety concerns. Senator John Thune, a Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee, said the "tragedy underscores the need to adopt laws and policies tailored for self-driving vehicles." However, two Democratic US senators on Thune's committee, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said the Uber incident demands a tough response. "This tragic incident makes clear that autonomous vehicle technology has a long way to go before it is truly safe for the passengers, pedestrians, and drivers who share America's roads," Blumenthal said in a statement. The Trump administration has been working to dismantle regulatory roadblocks to self-driving cars, but it has also said it is focused on ensuring safety. "The goal is to develop common sense regulations that do not hamper innovation, while preserving safety," Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said on March 1. A spokesman for Chao had no additional comment Monday. Chao is reviewing a petition that GM filed in January with NHTSA requesting an exemption to have a small number of autonomous vehicles operate in a ride-share program without steering wheels or human drivers. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said Monday in a statement the incident demonstrated "there are enormous risks inherent to testing unproven technologies on public roads. It is critical that pedestrians and drivers are safeguarded." Former US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Monday the incident is a "wake up call to the entire AV industry and government to put a high priority on safety." In September, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a measure that would allow automakers to win exemptions from safety rules that require human controls. A Senate version would allow automakers, within three years, to each sell up to 80,000 self-driving vehicles annually if they could demonstrate to regulators they are as safe as current vehicles. Concerns over the safety of autonomous vehicles

  FRANKFURT: Automaker BMW says this year's profits will at least equal last year's results as the company sinks billions into developing electric and autonomous car technology to meet expected changes in how people get from one place to another.
Chief Financial Officer Nicolas Peter told an annual news conference Wednesday that it expects group profit before tax to be "at least in line" with 2017's record 10.7 billion euros (currently $13.1 billion), which was up 10 percent.
Peter said the company would allocate "an increasing amount" to research and development after spending 6.1 billion euros in 2017, an increase of a billion euros. He said BMW remained financially strong, enabling a record dividend of 4 euros per share.
BMW made 8.7 billion euros net profit last year, up 26 percent. Last year's result was boosted by 977 million euros through the positive impact of changes in U.S. tax law enacted near the end of the year. Revenues rose 4.8 percent to a record 98.7 billion euros.
Auto companies are spending heavily to develop battery-powered cars in order to meet tough measures against global warming and air pollution. They are in a race with cash-rich tech companies such as Waymo and Uber to develop autonomous vehicles, although that technology remains in the testing stage, as underlined by a fatal accident Sunday in Arizona involving an autonomous Uber test vehicle. Companies are also developing digital transportation services involving the use of vehicles for short periods of time when people need them. Together, those technologies could lead to a form of driverless taxis.
BMW recently bought out partner Sixt to take full control of its DriveNow car-sharing company, giving it more flexibility to develop the business going forward.
BMW executives fielded several questions about the potential impact of new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum announced by U.S. President Donald Trump. The tariffs have raised the possibility that the European Union and others might retaliate, expanding the trade dispute to other categories of goods and reducing trade.
CEO Harald Krueger said the added costs to BMW of the steel and aluminum tariffs would be in the double-digit millions. Krueger said free trade had made possible the company's large presence in the United States, where it employs 11,000 people at its plant in South Carolina and from which it exports some 70 percent of the cars it makes, making BMW the largest single auto exporter from the U.S. "Our business model is based on free world trade," Krueger said.