driverless

American  

[drahy-ver-lis] / ˈdraɪ vər lɪs /

adjective

1. 1. not having a human driver in control.

      The horse became startled and the now driverless horse-drawn carriage ran into a car.

   2. without a human operator.

      driverless machinery.

2. (of a vehicle) navigated and maneuvered by a computer without a need for human control or intervention under a range of driving situations and conditions.

   a driverless car.

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Etymology

Origin of driverless

First recorded in 1840–1850

Explanation

If you spot a car cruising down the road without a human at the wheel, don’t worry — it's not a ghost driving, it's probably just a driverless vehicle. The word driverless means exactly what it sounds like: a vehicle with no one driving it. The word combines driver, someone who drives or controls movement, with the suffix -less, which means "without." Driverless vehicles use technology like sensors and computers to "see" the road and make decisions without a person behind the wheel.

Example Sentences

Baidu operates its Apollo Go driverless taxi service in dozens of cities across the world, mostly in China.

From BBC • Apr. 1, 2026

The rollout will begin with data-collection vehicles before moving to supervised launches and later driverless operations.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 17, 2026

Currently, driverless taxi fleets face a patchwork of state and local regulations; Musk has called this “incredibly painful” for the deployment of autonomous vehicles, and has pushed for a nationwide framework instead.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026

Musk is competing with Waymo, the Alphabet-owned ride-hailing service that operates fully driverless taxis in 10 cities, as well as Zoox, an Amazon-backed robotaxi effort.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 26, 2026

A pair of wondering, patient, driverless horses watched the departure, but they did not move from the spot where they had been checked by the first attack.

From Castle Craneycrow by McCutcheon, George Barr