Self-driving cars might get their own lane on Interstate 94

Self-driving vehicles may get their very own lanes along a stretch of the bustling Interstate 94 in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin transportation officials are considering the futuristic option because the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn — whose Chinese factory produces up to half a million iPhones a day — confirmed in October that it will build a 20 million square-foot flat-screen factory in Racine County, Wisconsin. This will inevitably bring a ton of commerce-related traffic to the region, so Foxconn asked state officials to consider a self-driving vehicle lane to more efficiently move things to and from the factory.

It appears the Wisconsin Department of Transportation is taking the request seriously.

“Yes, it is something we are looking at,” Michael Pyritz, spokesman for the department, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Although the department is still considering a variety of transportation ideas, Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that one option includes devoting self-driving lanes between the Foxconn plant and Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport. In this case, non-stop driverless trucks could continually shuttle materials between the factory and airport at all hours of the day.

The proposal for driverless lanes is made possible by the fact that Wisconsin had already planned to overhaul and widen a heavily used portion of Interstate 94. Regardless of what the state decides, trucks brimming with Foxconn-produced screens will soon be barreling down the Interstate 94. The question is whether anyone will be in the driver's seat.