(Bloomberg) – Self-driving cars may be the future, but relinquishing control of the wheel certainly takes some getting used to.

It's one thing to (slowly) go-with-the-flow on well-marked city streets, for which many self-driving cars were initially developed and tested, but what happens when you throw icy winter road conditions into the mix?

The minds at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland seek to collectively reassure us with Martti, which they claim is the first fully-autonomous car to safely handle a snow-covered public road without spinning out on a patch of black ice and death spiraling over a cliff. (Okay, no autonomous vehicle ever has death spiraled to our knowledge, but such are our fears.)

According to a press release, Martti, a retrofitted Volkswagen Touareg, hit 25 miles per hour on snowy roads without lane markings in Finland's famously frigid Lapland region and likely could go faster without issue.

Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader

Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Commercial Lines
Personal Lines
Loss Control
Weather Risk
Technology Implementation
Technology Solutions