Consider one of the most innocuous elements of the driving experience—the yellow and white lane markers that act as guidelines for millions of cars getting to their destinations every day, safely. Except, that is, when drivers get distracted.

In a vehicle today equipped with a Ford semi-autonomous feature like Lane-Keeping System, a firm and automated shake to the steering wheel can remind a distracted driver that she’s drifting out of the lane and into a potentially dangerous situation. As well as a slight torque to the wheel of the car that can help guide the vehicle back into the lane.

While lane-keeping and driver-assistance systems are becoming more broadly available in many passenger vehicles, another potential advance in driver safety technology has yet to fully emerge but is well under way—with the development of autonomous vehicles.

First Steps

Hop into a new vehicle and you’ll find that some of the basics of semi-autonomous features are already at your fingertips—or managed entirely in the background by the car’s software. Fire up cruise control the next time you’re on the highway and you may find that adaptive cruise control systems aren’t just keeping you traveling at one speed, they keep you a preset distance from the car ahead. For example, in Ford semi-autonomous feature equipped vehicles, adaptive cruise control is equipped with stop and go*, as well as, gap management technology.

Similarly, parallel parking has long been a difficult operation for many. New systems, such as Ford Active Park Assistance, can help to eliminate the back-and-forth of street parking, helping you to more easily slide into a parallel parking spot. Ford enhanced active park assist offers both parallel and perpendicular parking—allowing drivers to back into a perpendicular space and even adjust for even space on each side of the car. Today’s innovative automotive advancements in semi-autonomous vehicles currently on the road are paving the way for consumers’ acceptance of a future with fully autonomous vehicles.

The Road to “Snowtonomy”

As exciting as today’s technologies are, the fully autonomous vehicle of the future is becoming a showcase for a wide array of advances that promise immense long-term payoffs. And this isn’t just wishful thinking. Self-driving vehicles are already proving themselves in beta testing. One report from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that early-stage autonomous vehicles had accident rates lower than today’s cars, and none of those accidents were serious.

Consumers’ safety is, of course, automotive engineers’ top priority. It’s one thing to test a vehicle on a sleepy suburban back road or in a controlled facility. It’s another to take it for a spin in a slick rainstorm or an aggressive blizzard. But Ford is doing just that—taking steps to help ensure that the autonomous cars may be able to maneuver in even the most extreme weather conditions.

Using its chilly Michigan headquarters as a home base, Ford, in collaboration with the University of Michigan, is researching systems that can help self-driving cars’ sensors adapt to snow and other bad weather. Ford has developed an algorithm that recognizes such false positives and actually sees through the snow and the rain in poor conditions. To get around the visibility problems created by snow (which is so reflective it interferes with most cameras and sensors), Ford uses a detailed three-dimensional map to supplement its real-time LiDAR sensors. Ford is the only company today known to be testing such “snowtonomous” vehicles.

The future of autonomous vehicles indeed looks promising—and not just for the marvels of automation. What parent, after all, isn’t looking forward to the day they can ask their teenaged sons and daughters: “So what time will the car be bringing you home?”

*Currently, stop and go is only available in the 2017 Ford Fusion.

For more intriguing content related to Ford Smart Mobility visit A Brief History of Autonomous Vehicle Technology.

This story was produced by the WIRED Brand Lab for Ford Motor Company.