Well here it is, the moment the sheep have been waiting for: Google just announced the prototype of the first wholly Google-spec autonomous car. It has no steering wheel or pedals, instead packing GPS navigation and a stop-go button as its only means of control.
According to Google, the self-driving prototype’s principle job will be to “shoulder the entire burden of driving,” pitching the whole concept as more of a taxi service than anything. “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.”
Google says the car has sensors that scan all around the vehicle, and that they can recognize objects up to 200 yards away. Initial top speeds are capped at 25 mph. Beyond the aforementioned button, the rest of the equipment list reads like so: two seats, two seatbelts, stowage for a small amount of cargo or personal belongings, and a screen that shows where you’re going.
While Google claims its fully autonomous car is still in the early stages of development, the company plans to officially test roughly 100 of them this summer with human passengers that it Orwellianly dubs “safety drivers.” These cars will have manual controls.
But don’t hold your breath; it could be a while before you have a driverless chariot of your very own. Google is hoping to run a much broader, California-based pilot program with multiple vehicles, although that won’t happen for at least a couple of years. In the meantime, you can see the prototype in action, delicately chauffeuring people around I, Robot–style, in the video below.
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