Google Reveals Its Electric Self-Driving Car Prototype

[Steven Bogos]

Google Reveals Its Electric Self-Driving Car Prototype

Google's self-driving car is electric, has no pedals, no steering wheel, and can be hailed like an automated taxi.

Google has unveiled the official prototype for its self-driving car initiative, and it looks like something straight out of the future. No steering wheel, no pedals, and 100% electric - the car will work like a kind of automated taxi that users can "call" to pick them up, and drive them to their location.

"We're now exploring what fully self-driving vehicles would look like by building some prototypes; they'll be 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," explained Google in an official blog post [http://googleblog.blogspot.jp/2014/05/just-press-go-designing-self-driving.html]. You can check out the car in action in the video to the right.

Google believes that its cars will make the road safer for everyone by removing the human element entirely. "We started with the most important thing: safety. They have sensors that remove blind spots, and they can detect objects out to a distance of more than two football fields in all directions, which is especially helpful on busy streets with lots of intersections," it explained. On the downside, the cars will initially be capped at 25 MPH.

"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."

This sounds and looks fantastic - the ability to have my car "pick me up" from a night out drinking without having to worry about an expensive taxi fare would be great, however, I'd like for there to be some sort of I, Robot-style manual override so I can still drive by myself if I wanted to.

Source: Google [http://googleblog.blogspot.jp/2014/05/just-press-go-designing-self-driving.html]

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[Whispering Cynic]

An interesting concept, but it just seems insane to climb into a vehicle without the option of manual control. I am certainly not capable of such levels of trust...

 

[QuadFish]

Their safety record so far is pretty okay: 2 accidents since the start of testing, neither of them caused by the automatic driving. A self-driving car is an inherently scary idea but for now it seems they're doing a good job. Hopefully it stays that way.

 

[RedBackDragon]

*takes one look at the car* BWAHAHAHAAAAAA AHHHH OH MY GOD THAT THING LOOKS SO SILLY!!! i rely want to take you seriously googe i rely rely do and i think that this is an awesome idea but dear lord do you need some help in the design even "the homer" would be better than this.

 

[Ferisar]

*takes one look at the car* BWAHAHAHAAAAAA AHHHH OH MY GOD THAT THING LOOKS SO SILLY!!! i rely want to take you seriously googe i rely rely do and i think that this is an awesome idea but dear lord do you need some help in the design even "the homer" would be better than this.

for being an electric car without a steering wheel and pedals that can drive itself form point a to point b, and being a prototype?

what the hell did you expect? a prius lookalike?


OT: I can see this having a large audience of disabled and elderly people that cant drive themselves due to medical or physical reasons.

of course there will be the dirty hipster who will get one ironically because driving is too mainstream.

I'd get one because I have more trust in a machine than myself when it comes to driving a vehicle so hipster!

 

[Mr.Mattress]

This, ladies and gentlemen, is progress. Really neat progress I might add!

Still, I'd be too worried of an accident to get one myself (Until all the Bugs have definitely been worked out or a majority of cars are now Self-Automated). But this is an awesome step in the right direction.

 

[KDR_11k]

Probably a really good idea to use one of these but they really need a new look.

 

[Lightknight]

This is really cool. Self-driving cars will have to be the way of the future. They're simply too useful as if we all had a personal chauffeur. From shuttling people who can't drive to any other number of things, this is necessary.

I don't like there being no steering wheel or pedals. I feel like there must be situations where you need it (like if a bird hits that spinning thing or branches or anything else).

Their safety record so far is pretty okay: 2 accidents since the start of testing, neither of them caused by the automatic driving. A self-driving car is an inherently scary idea but for now it seems they're doing a good job. Hopefully it stays that way.

It's actually perfect as long as they really weren't caused by the auto feature.

 

[And Man]

That's awesome. Being able to play 3DS and do other stuff while driving would be pretty great. I'd be pretty interested once they get the top speed to a reasonable level.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

It's the future, for sure. But I don't know how successful they could be without insane infrastructure investments. I understand the natural fear of not being in control but it's more than a fair trade off if the other drivers aren't either.

 

[CalPal]

I look at the front of the car and think that it's had a truly horrified experience. It's like it's thinking to itself "I have seen some shit, people..."

 

[ron1n]

Next prototype update needs to be a Johnny Cab.

This technology would be amazing if they can perfect it though. Would give anything to be able to just sleep and chill out when traveling to and from work.

I bet there'd be all kinds of other unforeseen benefits like huge drops in people's stress levels.

 

[Grimh]

I don't really care much for driving and jump at every chance to just lazily sit in the passenger seat, so this is like a dream come true.
There should maybe be some kind of emergency manual override though.

 

[Gorrath]

I love the idea of an automated cab I can hail, pay a small fee and get anywhere in the city. If they could get the things doing 65, I'd never drive to/from work again. As for trusting a machine to do the driving, I'll trust it far faster than I'll trust a human. People are awful, AWFUL drivers even when sober and paying attention. They have terrible, impatient habits and shitty reaction times. I'll take the machine every time.

 

[Ambitiousmould]

It looks like one of Robocop's buttocks.

Seriously though, even if the tech is sound, I wouldn't get in. It's like what they said on Top Gear. "Half of all plane crashes are pilot error. And planes can take off, fly and land themselves, so if you took away the pilot, logically, the number of crashes would half. But would you get in a plane with no pilot?" (at this point the general consensus was no).

 

[nyysjan]

On slightly related news, in Finland there is actually talks going about changing some laws to allow use of fully utomated vehicles in some areas.
Proponents are hoping it would bring in some tech industries into the country, as well as help the disabled and elderly to move about more freely.

 

[Nimcha]

Pretty cool, I could see this becoming a standard for inner city travel.

 

[DrOswald]

It looks like one of Robocop's buttocks.

Seriously though, even if the tech is sound, I wouldn't get in. It's like what they said on Top Gear. "Half of all plane crashes are pilot error. And planes can take off, fly and land themselves, so if you took away the pilot, logically, the number of crashes would half. But would you get in a plane with no pilot?" (at this point the general consensus was no).

I would totally get in a plane that did not have a pilot if it was safer. But that logic is really flawed as it fails to take into account plane crashes avoided by the pilot that would have resulted from hardware error. Instruments can fail and pilots are able to make up the difference with the ability to adapt. I would prefer an automated plane with an optional manual override with a trained pilot who could take over if needed.

However, cars are not planes, driving is not flying, and the average driver is not a pilot. The primary reason a pilot is needed is for complex adaptation to unexpected situations. The situations that arise in driving are much simpler to resolve and the average driver is significantly less skilled than the average pilot. Everyone can drive, and that is the big problem. Everyone sucks at driving and they cause all sorts of easily avoided accidents.

So the sooner these things replace normal cars the better.