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DETROIT — Google Inc.’s director of self-driving cars says he expects the technology to be on the road within two to five years, and he doesn’t think permission from regulators is required to get there.

“We don’t actually think there’s a regulatory block at this point,” Chris Urmson told reporters after speaking at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit.

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Referring specifically to the American regulator, Mr. Urmson said he doesn’t think Google needs the permission of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to get self-driving vehicles on the road.

“I think that if you ask NHTSA, they would think that they are not a permission-granting organization,” he said.

“NHTSA could certainly reactively ban it, but we don’t think that they need to grant permission ahead of time.”

Whether the same is true of Transport Canada is irrelevant for the time being, as Mr. Urmson said Google is still a long way from getting its self-driving technology to work in cold climates, where sensors could ice up or essential pieces of information such as stop signs could be covered in snow.