Speaking in the US capital, Hakan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars called for a single set of nationwide rules and regulations for the development and testing of self-driving cars.
"The US risks losing its leading position due to the lack of Federal guidelines for the testing and certification of autonomous vehicles," said Samuelsson at a special event held at the Swedish embassy here.
"Europe has suffered to some extent by having a patchwork of rules and regulations. It would be a shame if the US took a similar path to Europe in this crucial area."
The US has been ahead of the curve in allowing car and tech companies to test their vehicles on public roads. Google has clocked up over 1 million autonomous miles on the roads around Mountain View, and in March automotive component maker Delphi was allowed to autonomously drive a specially adapted Audi from San Francisco to New York, a record distance of 5471km.
For some perspective, the first sanctioned test of an autonomous vehicle on French public roads took place on October 2, 2015, and the car in question, a Peugeot Citroen-developed prototype, covered a tenth of that distance.
But Europe as a whole is starting to wake up to the technology. In Britain, Germany and Sweden the roads are open to autonomous vehicle testing but in the US, different states still have different regulations.
Volvo, which has emerged as one of the early frontrunners in the race to bring autonomous driving technology to real-world vehicles, believes this will harm car companies' chances of developing compliant vehicles. "The absence of one set of rules means car makers cannot conduct credible tests to develop cars that meet all the different guidelines of all 50 US states," he said. "If we are to ensure a smooth transition to autonomous mobility then together we must create the necessary framework that will support this."
However, even when all of these technological hurdles have been overcome, ethical, philosophical and moral questions remain.
During the Frankfurt motor show in September, a special symposium set out to try and address issues such as who is responsible when an autonomous car crashes and how do self-diving vehicles make emergency decisions.
Samuelsson called on regulators and car makers to work together to resolves these issues but also made it clear that Volvo would be prepared to accept full liability whenever one of its cars is in autonomous driving mode.
