“Autonomous vehicle” may end up looking like a misnomer, once the first driverless cars actually hit the road. Sure, AVs need to be capable of autonomy—but like humans, they’re much better when connected, to the cloud and to each other.

As a society, we expect constant and ubiquitous connectivity from our mobile devices, and we’re frustrated when we can’t get a signal to access the information and services we need.

The race is well underway on for both automakers and tech companies to produce the first generation of autonomous vehicles, with optimistic minds expecting the first commercial models to hit the road by 2020.