For years, the key question around autonomous driving has been: When? When will we be able to order a robotaxi via an app and ride it with no driver? When will our personal vehicle take us to work on its own? When will we be able to stop worrying about accidents caused by human error?
Now, in 2025, the conversation is shifting. It is no longer about when or even if – but rather who will lead, and how the autonomous revolution, which is already underway, will become as safe, efficient, and accessible as possible.
Recent industry developments show a clear transition from autonomous hype to genuine commercial feasibility.
Mercedes now offers an autonomous vehicle that allows drivers to take their eyes off the road and read a newspaper behind the wheel. Uber and Waymo have announced expansions of their robotaxi services to cities.
In June, after years of promises and development, Tesla launched its first robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. WeRide has introduced a robotaxi model and received approvals to operate in Beijing and Abu Dhabi.
These are no longer isolated experiments. They represent a deeper understanding and acceptance among automakers that the responsibility for preventing accidents is moving from the driver to the vehicle itself – a practical realization of level 3 autonomy, where the vehicle takes full control but still expects the human to be on standby.
Understanding the environment
As the market enters a competitive and implementation-driven phase, a fundamental discussion arises: How will an autonomous vehicle truly “understand” its environment? Is it realistic to rely on computer vision alone, as Tesla promotes, based only on cameras and AI? Or is a richer array of sensors required to strengthen the vehicle’s ability to perceive its surroundings, even if that adds complexity to merging data from multiple technologies in real time?
Instead of falling into either-or thinking – cameras, lidar, or radar – it is time to understand that combining them is the only path to truly safe autonomous vehicles.
Cameras alone won’t suffice
A smart vehicle cannot make correct decisions if it sees only a partial picture of reality. From detecting pedestrians, such as a child darting out from behind a parked car to spotting a cyclist at night to driving through heavy rain and fog, an autonomous driving system must operate reliably and with sufficient accuracy in real time.
To do so, it needs rich, trustworthy data about its surroundings, beyond just visual information. That means exact data about the speed and direction of other vehicles on the road, to better predict a rapidly changing traffic environment.
It requires accurate mapping of what is happening hundreds of meters ahead, in order to allow for safe braking distances and higher-speed driving on highways. It needs precise depth perception to enable emergency braking, as well as fine-grained details to identify obstacles down the road.
High-resolution imaging radar delivers all of these capabilities.It is precise, long-range, and works reliably even in the dark or rain, allowing the vehicle to “see” far beyond what a standard camera can provide.
Bringing it to the masses
The biggest challenge is not only technological, but also economic. Today, high sensor costs mean that most high-end systems are integrated only in luxury vehicles or in limited pilots.
Truly democratizing autonomous driving requires developing advanced yet affordable technologies that can be deployed across large fleets of robotaxis, trucks, and private vehicles – not just in expensive flagship projects run by industry giants.
Here, radar has a strong advantage: although it is highly innovative, it is based on well-established, proven technology with a significantly lower price point compared to other sensors like lidar.
Israel leads the way.
In this race, Israeli innovation plays a central role. Companies like Mobileye, Innoviz, and Arbe place Israel at the forefront of the global market. The only companies on the market that offer high resolution radar are Arbe and Mobileye. Arbe, for example, offers the most detailed high-resolution imaging radar in the industry, partnering with leading tier one suppliers and automakers worldwide.
This is not just a local success story, thanks to these leaders, Israel is poised to become the beating heart of the smart sensing revolution, bringing autonomous driving from the lab to the streets.
For years we’ve asked when we could take our hands off the wheel. Today, the question is how we can make this capability safe, affordable, and available to everyone – not just the wealthy, and not just in select cities.
This is exactly where the Israeli opportunity lies: combining innovation, engineering, and business thinking to lead a world where autonomous driving is not a dream, but a safe, accessible, and universal reality.
The writer is chief business officer at Arbe Robotics.