Colmobil Corp. offers first autonomous car for sale in Israel

The first autonomous car has gone on sale in Israel.

The car was developed by Colmobil Corp., and is powered by Israeli technology firm Mobileye.

Though the car can operate fully autonomously, current law in Israel does not allow fully autonomous cars to operate on public roads. However in the meantime, the car has several automated features that buyers can take advantage of, such as automated steering and crash detection and avoidance, Israeli news site Israel Hayom reports.

The fact that the car is powered by Mobileye’s systems is proving to be quite a boon. As MIT’s Technology Review says, working with Mobileye for autonomous systems is becoming “increasingly popular,” as well as an attractive alternative to other more publicity-friendly companies such as Google.

“How can automakers compete with companies developing self-driving vehicles, such as Google parent Alphabet? One increasingly popular option is to partner with Mobileye, which makes machine vision systems and motion detection algorithms that warn drivers when they are deviating from driving lanes or about to collide with cars in front of them,” MIT Technology Review said.

Mobileye was recently ranked sixth on MIT’s list of the “50 Smartest Companies.”

Israel Hayom reports, Mobileye is already working on partially autonomous, automated systems for several big-name automakers such as Audi, BMW, General Motors, Nissan, Tesla, Volkswagen, and Volvo, and “recently inked an agreement with two undisclosed automakers to provide systems for fully autonomous cars.”