Google's car is go...
Autonomous city vehicle prototype revealed. Not coming to the PH Fleet soon
Having adapted conventional cars for its previous driverless projects, Google has now designed a car from the ground up. As you can see, it has been styled to appear as inoffensive and 'nice' as possible, with a face that looks like something from a Nintendo game made from squishy foam. Aww.
Of course the reason for the soft front is the same reason for the 25mph limited speed; perceived safety. Google wants its autonomous tech to be as unintimidating as possible, which will take some considerable work given this is a car without pedals or a steering wheel. There are just stop and go buttons. Well, that's the eventual plan but the initial 100 prototypes will be fitted with additional controls so one of Google's test drivers can take over if necessary. No further details on how that works just yet...
Google's head of the self driving project is Chris Urmson who said the car is "something that will allow us to really push the capabilities of self driving technology, and understand the limitations". He expects the 100 test cars to be on the roads around Google's Silicon Valley base within a year.
Vid here crammed with Google sickly sweetness and old people.
Of course most won't be owned, because you don't need to own one if it turns up to collect you at the press of a button on your smartphone: they will be shared on some sort of rental / lease basis, or be used as robot taxis.
The DfT has not really started thinking about this yet which is a mistake: they need to get their skates on.
Who's to say in X years time when these are common place and human error is removed from road traffic accidents that the attention of the likes of BRAKE and other organisations doesnt shift to remove all remaining elements of human error from transportation. The end of motor bikes, classic cars etc?
Who's to say in X years time when these are common place and human error is removed from road traffic accidents that the attention of the likes of BRAKE and other organisations doesnt shift to remove all remaining elements of human error from transportation. The end of motor bikes, classic cars etc?
Doubt you would have ever left the cave.
For most people this would be amazing. As someone said you could just get dropped off and the car can go park miles away then pick you up later.
Sometimes when in stop start traffic it would be better to just flick into auto pilot and you can check emails or read the paper.
If we're honest, most driving in cities is pretty awful; letting a computer get on with it would be great.
WRT safety - I'm sure these will be massively safety tested and better than the tired/old/unskilled/drunk/aggressive majority that we have to put up with at the moment.
Not that I don't see driverless cars as a theoretically good idea mind you, I love the idea of being able to drive to a nice country pub somewhere, have lunch and a few beers, and have the car drive me home afterwards... but it does have to be something I'd want to drive in the first place.
Dad will then be dispatched pronto in his old school V8 to pick em up.
In reality no one will own them though, they'll just be taxi's hailed from a smart phone ap. The nearfield do da in your phone will unlock the car when it arrives. They'll smell like a public toilet mind.
...which is something a 25mph car can't do?
Still, let's hope this gets the shot it deserves (and let's hope google employ a better stylist). The reality is still more likely to be a steady procession of mainstream cars with ever more technology designed to stop drivers having an accident (...and only on PH do I feel the need to state, this is a good thing). It'll be a while before regulators and insurers are happy with completely letting go of the human 'backup' being at the wheel at all times, even if the computer takes over the grunt work quite quickly. And we won't see a lot of the benefits until we do let go.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff