driverlessadj.
/ˈdrʌɪvələs/, U.S. /ˈdraɪvərləs/ Of a vehicle or an animal drawing a vehicle: lacking a driver, not controlled by a driver; (in later use) esp. designating a vehicle capable of travelling completely autonomously, without input from a human operator (cf. self-driving adj. 2c).
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > means of travel > a conveyance > vehicle > [adjective] > without a driver
driverless1830
1830 N.-Y. Mirror, & Ladies' Lit. Gaz. 6 Feb. 244/2 Carts and carriages came rattling down the highways horseless and driverless, and wheelbarrows trundled along without any visible agency.
1870 Daily News 23 Apr. He lost all command over the horses, which dashed along driverless.
1892 Pall Mall Gaz. 19 Jan. 4/3 The runaway horses had taken the driverless coach on without injury.
1967 Guardian 2 Feb. 3/3 Westinghouse Electric Corporation, of Pittsburgh..have developed a driverless ‘skybus’ for the US Government... The skybus is a cross between a bus and a train and can run in tunnels, on the ground, or elevated.
2005 Independent 10 Oct. 25/3 The Pentagon has an interest in the development of robot cars and wants a third of ground vehicles to be driverless by 2015.
2017 New Scientist 8 Apr. 10/1 Our actions are unpredictable enough that machine vision systems, such as those used in driverless cars, can't readily make sense of them.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2021; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1830