Look, Ma! No steering wheel!
This could be the future of motoring, with Google having built a
prototype of a self-driving car needing only the passenger to push a
button to "Go."
Tech site The Verge noted the prototype is a new incarnation that veered away from earlier versions, which were basically just retrofits of existing vehicles from Toyota and Lexus.
Google posted a YouTube video of its volunteers taking a ride on its prototype, which has no steering wheel or pedal:
"Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a
20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even
if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving?
History," Chris Urmson, director of Google's Self-Driving Car Project,
said in a blog post.
Urmson said they are now building some prototypes "designed to operate
safely and autonomously without requiring human intervention."
"They won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal...
because they don’t need them. Our software and sensors do all the work.
The vehicles will be very basic—we want to learn from them and adapt
them as quickly as possible—but they will take you where you want to go
at the push of a button. And that's an important step toward improving
road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people," he said.
Starting from scratch
Urmson said that in designing the car from scratch, they put a premium
on safety - installing sensors that remove blind spots and detect
objects out to a distance of more than two football fields in all
directions.
But the cars won't be speed demons, at least for now - their speeds are limited to 25 mph.
Neither will they be luxury cars - they'll just have two seats with seatbelts and a space for passengers' belongings.
However, the vehicles will have to start and stop, and a screen that shows the route.
"We’ve designed for learning, not luxury, so we’re light on creature comforts," he said.
100 prototypes
Urmson said they are planning to build 100 prototype vehicles, and
safety drivers will start testing early versions of these vehicles that
have manual controls, in the summer.
"If all goes well, we’d like to run a small pilot program here in California in the next couple of years. We’re going to learn a lot from this experience, and if the technology develops as we hope, we’ll work with partners to bring this technology into the world safely," he said. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News
source: gmanetwork.com
