Google is to start building its own
self-driving cars, rather than modifying vehicles built by other manufacturers.
The car will have a stop-go button but no controls, steering wheel or
pedals. Pictures of the Google vehicle show it looks like a city car with a
"friendly" face, designed to make it seem non-threatening and help people accept
self-driving technology.
Co-founder Sergey Brin revealed the plans at a conference in California.
"We're really excited about this vehicle - it's something that will allow us
to really push the capabilities of self driving technology, and understand the
limitations," said Chris Urmson, director of the company's self-driving project.
He added that the cars had the ability to "improve people's lives by transforming mobility".
But some researchers working in this field are investigating potential downsides to driverless car technology. They believe they could make traffic and urban sprawl worse, as people accept longer commutes because they do not have to drive themselves.
Early renderings of the car makes it look almost cartoon-like, it has no traditional hood at the front, and the wheels are pushed to the corners.
The front end of the vehicle is designed to be safer for pedestrians, with a soft foam-like material where a traditional bumper would be, and a more flexible windscreen, which may help reduce injuries. The vehicle will use a combination of laser and radar sensors along with camera data to drive autonomously. It will depend on Google's road maps, built specifically for the program, and tested on the company's current fleet of vehicles.
"We'll see these vehicles on the road within the year," says Mr Urmson.
Advocates claim that autonomous cars have the potential to revolutionize transportation, by making roads safer, eliminating crashes, and decreasing congestion and pollution.
"I think it has the potential to be the most important safety technology that the auto industry has ever seen," he said.
But Sven Beiler, executive director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford cautions that driverless cars may still require human input in extreme circumstances and that people may forget how to operate their vehicles if they do not do it regularly. This could be particularly dangerous in an emergency situation where the computer does not know how to react, and asks for input from a human who may not have been paying attention, he warned.
"You will not be able to fiddle around looking for the instruction manual in the glove compartment that you've never looked at before," he said. He equates it to people who drive automatics forgetting how to drive a car with a manual gearbox.
But this is what the future hold. We will rely more and more on technology to transport us, work for us and generally serve us in every way. Is it a good thing? The jury's still out.
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