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From [an article about self-driving
cars:](http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10011283441000/k10011283441000.html)

> 日本のトヨタ自動車は、人が運転しなくても走る自動運転の車を紹介しています。

I'm unsure on the translation of part of the above sentence. Does this mean
that:

  1. Even people who don't drive can travel in these self-driving cars
  2. The car can travel without anybody driving it

2 was my initial thought reading this, but it seems an odd thing to state. It
wouldn't be self-driving if someone was driving it. But 1 also seems odd to
me, since this doesn't seem like something that could possibly be legal.

Which is the correct translation?
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translation
Correct translation of 人が運転しなくても走る
In the interest of clarity, I want to point out that #1 is arguably a logical
subset of #2. If the car can travel without anybody driving it, someone who
doesn't drive can travel in it. Based on your comment about legality though,
I'm going to assume you mean someone who is missing their license or for some
other reason _can't_ drive.

In any case, this very much looks like #1 to me.

> 人が運転しなくても走る車

Is pretty clearly "A car that will travel even if (the) person is not
driving". There's no information here about the person's _ability_ to drive.
If you wanted to say something like "a car usable even by people who cannot
drive", I would expect it to be something like:

> 運転できない人でも使える車

Lastly, while I agree this is probably not going to be legal in the states for
quite a while, I want to point out that the article is about an event where
various companies are introducing new products, presumably ones that they feel
are particularly representative of technological advances on their part.
Companies often do this more to show that they have the technology than with
the intent of using it immediately. That, and I wouldn't expect a simplified
news article to go into detail about legalities anyway.

Edit: Since する (in 運転する) is present/future tense, one could argue that it
should be read as "A car that will travel even if (the) person does not
drive". However, this is ambiguous in English anyway (does not drive in
general? does not drive _that car_?), and consequently I would expect that in
either language if somebody meant to specify that the person did not drive in
the general sense they would make it more explicit. Particularly in Japanese
where there are options to specify "a person who doesn't drive" as "運転しない人",
the phrase "人が運転しなくても走る" really looks like it's talking about #1 to me.
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answer
The literal translation is 2. The relative clause 人が運転しなくても走る just explains
the meaning of the phrase 自動運転の車 itself. In other words, this relative clause
does not refer to a subcategory of 自動運転車. 自動運転車 has been a well-known concept,
but somehow the author thought it needed clarification.

> トヨタ自動車は、人が運転しなくても走る自動運転の車を紹介しています。  
>  Toyota is introducing an autonomous car, (which is) a car that runs even if
> a person does not drive it.
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