The reality of driverless cars may be further away that many in the real estate industry think. There have been predictions that there will be widespread adoption of self-driving cars in as soon as a decade. In reality, however, self-driving cars need an intelligent infrastructure, especially in areas without GPS data. Parking garages and parking lots are particularly challenging for autonomous driving. While self-driving cars seem to be inevitable, adoption will likely come through slow adoption and private and public investment in intelligent infrastructure over several decades.

“Intelligent infrastructure is what will enable the driverless cars. To get a vehicle to drive itself into a parking garage with no GPS data, it would need maps of the internals of the structure to know where to go, and that is near impossible today,” Lester Mascon, EVP of Sentry Control Systems, tells GlobeSt.com. “Driverless cars don’t have the data or satellite information, and likely, it won’t have a cell connection in a current parking garage.”