Australia's transport ministers have formally announced that they will introduce new legislation that will pave the way for the formulation of new national driving laws for autonomous vehicles. As part of a co-ordinated and joint approach from a number of states and territories in the country - a new national law is expected to be drafted into place by 2020.

BMW Group has announced that it has officially obtained the Shanghai Intelligent Connected Autonomous Driving Test License.

Jaguar Land Rover has announced that it is currently demonstrating self-driving technology that will enable its fleet of vehicles to locate vacant parking spaces independently and then proceed to park them without any input from the driver.

New legislation in relation to self-driving technology and autonomous transportation which is currently being drafted by the US Republican party - will prevent individual US states from establishing and forming its own set of rules and guidelines in relation to the design, testing and subsequent deployment of self-driving cars.

Research conducted in the United States is projecting that the sales of autonomous vehicles is set to explode exponentially in the next eight years. The increase in sales is expected to be primarily propelled by aggressive investment from the likes of Google subsidiary Waymo.

South Korean multinational conglomerate Samsung has been given the green light to begin testing its self-driving technology on public roads in the country. The South Korean government gave the smartphone colossus permission to test out the new self-driving technologies it has developed. Samsung is the latest amongst a number of other companies that were granted approval to begin testing self-driving tech on the country's road.

Tesla CEO and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk has passionately defended self-driving technology despite the fact it has come under intense scrutiny following a number of fatalities where vehicles where in self-driving or autopilot mode.

The global movement towards the mass deployment of autonomous and electric vehicles was once again criticized following the fatal collision involving an electric Tesla Model X vehicle in the US.

A US road safety body has issued a call for the federal government to introduce tougher regulations and standards in relation to autonomous driving following two recent fatalities which occurred on US roads in the past fortnight.