UK to be 'driverless car world leader' The team has already tested a car on a private road in a science park, but the Department of Transport granted permission for trials on roads with other traffic. Most testing of driverless cars so far has been carried out by Google. Its self-driving car recently completed 500,000 miles of roads, with California, Nevada and Florida all passing legislation to allow driverless cars. Nissan has also carried out the first public road test of a driverless car on a highway in Japan. Volvo has announced a plan to put 100 autonomous vehicles on public roads around Gothenburg, Sweden, by 2017. 2017 is also the date Google has set for when its cars will hit the road, while Elon Musk, head of electric car company Tesla Motors, has said their vehicles will be ready in 2016. Many normal cars already hold some of the technology used in driverless cars, such as autonomous emergency braking, which can slow and even stop the car if a driver fails to react to an impending collision.