SAN
FRANCISCO — The world is one step closer to the day when people can,
in good conscience, drive to work while sipping coffee, texting with a
friend and working on a laptop computer.
On Friday, Google announced
that sometime this summer several prototype versions of its
self-driving cars are set to hit the streets of Mountain View, Calif.,
the search giant’s hometown. The move is still just another round of
testing but it is a significant step toward a pilot program in which
regular consumers could ride in self-driving cars.
Google
has long been testing its self-driving car technology with a fleet of
Lexus sport utility vehicles that have driven about a million miles on
public roads, and that continue to put in 10,000 miles each week.
Traditional
automakers are also pushing the envelope of driverless tech with
on-the-road testing of their own autonomous prototypes, and the industry
predicts that by 2020 those dreams could come true.
Getting
there is now much more about software than hardware. The systems of
radar, lasers and cameras currently used by Google and automakers have
grown so sophisticated that the vehicles can easily monitor the road in
all directions — even beyond what the eye can see. The tough part is
figuring out what to do with all that information.
Google Self-Driving Car Tests Set for Summer
The first autonomous vehicle Google has
made will hit public roads in northern California for tests this summer,
reports Phil LeBeau of CNBC.
By CNBC on Publish Date May 15, 2015.
In
essence, the cars need an electronic brain that knows how to drive in a
world where human drivers, as well as pedestrians and bicyclists, often
do unpredictable things.
They
also need to understand regional differences. Drivers in Boston, for
instance, often behave differently than those in Atlanta or Los Angeles,
where unspoken rules of the road and cultural cues can vary.
City
environments are particularly challenging, and require software with
much more flexibility and power. That’s one of the reasons Google (and
its rival, Apple) hope their software acumen can help them solve the
puzzle. And now that Google will be testing its new bubble-shaped cars
on public roads near its Mountain View headquarters, it’s getting one
step closer to honing its predictive technology for urban settings.
Unlike the fleet of self-driving Lexuses that are already on the road, Google’s prototype, which looks like a golf cart with doors,
is designed to be a fully autonomous car in which people get in, set
their destination and relax as the car does the work. The prototypes
cannot go faster than 25 miles per hour and, for now, have a steering
wheel and pedals so that a “safety driver” could take over.
The steering wheel is a legal requirement, but Google’s plan is to take the driver out of driving completely.
Earlier this year, during a presentation at the South by Southwest
festival in Austin, Astro Teller, head of the Google X research
division that created the self-driving car, said that in the fall of
2012 the company started allowing Google employees to take the Lexus
version home and self-drive on the freeway, so long as they kept paying
attention in the event of an emergency.
Despite this, the employees got used to self-driving and stopped paying attention.
“The assumption that humans can be a reliable backup for the system was a total fallacy,” Mr. Teller said in the presentation.
“Once people trust the system, they trust it.” Google realized the best
thing to do “was to make a car that has no steering wheel, that has no
brake pedal, that has no acceleration pedal — that drives itself all the
time, from point A to point B, at the push of a button.”
Of
course, nothing is accident-proof. Earlier this week, Chris Urmson,
director of Google’s Self-Driving Car Project, disclosed that self-driving cars had been in 11 “minor accidents” in which there was only light damage and no injuries, and that “not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident.”
This
included seven rear-end collisions, a couple of wrecks in which cars
were sideswiped and one crash in which the self-driving car was hit by a
driver who rolled through a stop sign.
The
challenge of city driving is one reason driverless technology has first
arrived on highways. In the coming months, Tesla Motors has promised to
introduce an “autopilot” feature that can take over highway driving in
certain conditions. Next year, other automakers will do the same, such
as General Motors’ “Super Cruise,” which will allow hands-off-the-wheel,
foot-off-the-pedals highway driving.
Parking
is another area that is poised for an overhaul. Companies like Ford
already offer cars that pull into parking spaces automatically. The
French supplier Valeo, which works with multiple automakers, is now
working on technology aimed at parking garages where you can pull up to a
garage and get out, leaving your car to find an available space and
park itself.
When you’re ready to leave, the car acts like a robotic valet as it unparks and meets you out front.
end quote from:
| New York Times | - |
SAN
FRANCISCO - The world is one step closer to the day when people can, in
good conscience, drive to work while sipping coffee, texting with a
friend and working on a laptop computer.
See realtime coverage »
Most of the time I prefer to drive myself because it is less boring to drive a car than to sit in a car while someone or something else drive's it.
But, I think when you are intoxicated or sleepy and not safe to drive, or when you have an important business or personal conversation that takes a lot of concentration while you are in the car, it might be nice to have a car that you can drive or that you can order to drive for you when you want it to.
However, I would never want to own one that didn't allow me to drive it ever.
Also, I'm not interested in all electric vehicles or hybrids because I don't want to get cancer or other health problems. I have now researched hybrids and electrics enough to know that it is at least like strapping 20 cellphones to your head and body while they are on or being used all the time you are in a hybrid or all electric vehicle. And it will be this way until someone like Tesla puts shielding in them (usually around all the carpeted areas from your toes in the front to where luggage might be stored in the very back. Until this is seriously done, 10 to 20 years of riding in a hybrid or all electric is going to make most people sick in various ways. And some will die from these sicknesses. This includes people's children now riding in them as they grow up.
And people who don't understand this are playing Russian Roulette with their health and their children's health whenever they ride in hybrids or all electrics. This is a given
Most of the time I prefer to drive myself because it is less boring to drive a car than to sit in a car while someone or something else drive's it.
But, I think when you are intoxicated or sleepy and not safe to drive, or when you have an important business or personal conversation that takes a lot of concentration while you are in the car, it might be nice to have a car that you can drive or that you can order to drive for you when you want it to.
However, I would never want to own one that didn't allow me to drive it ever.
Also, I'm not interested in all electric vehicles or hybrids because I don't want to get cancer or other health problems. I have now researched hybrids and electrics enough to know that it is at least like strapping 20 cellphones to your head and body while they are on or being used all the time you are in a hybrid or all electric vehicle. And it will be this way until someone like Tesla puts shielding in them (usually around all the carpeted areas from your toes in the front to where luggage might be stored in the very back. Until this is seriously done, 10 to 20 years of riding in a hybrid or all electric is going to make most people sick in various ways. And some will die from these sicknesses. This includes people's children now riding in them as they grow up.
And people who don't understand this are playing Russian Roulette with their health and their children's health whenever they ride in hybrids or all electrics. This is a given
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