The concept of self driving vehicles has been a fantasy for over decades that have been brought to life on a number of occasions. We have seen sci-fi movies exploring the idea, followed by auto and tech companies working on the technology to make vehicles capable of self-driving passengers from point A to B. What it does mean is more time for work or play during commuting, less human errors and subsequently lesser road accidents. While the tech works do play a dominant role in the modern cars of today that assist you in driving, the Google self driving car replaces the driver with sensors.
The tech internet giant Google has been working on a self driving vehicle of its own and recently released the first prototype of the car, which surprisingly does not feature a steering wheel or brake pedals and takes inspiration from a tomato in terms of design. There’s a reason why this is a prototype. Nobody! Absolutely nobody in the future would want to be seen driven around in this. It has a robotic face comprising of googly eyes, stubby nose and a smile at the bottom, straight out of Disney studios. To be very frank, it makes the Smart ForTwo look interesting on so many levels.
The Google self driving car has been designed with sensors to avoid pedestrians, cyclists and even small animals. While the size of the small animals has not been given, Google says it is working on making the sensors more accurate. The two-seater pod ferries around passengers without a driver, taking direct control. It uses a combination of add-on sensors, GPS and cameras to navigate and avoid pedestrians. The car knows when to stop, where to park and can travel up to 40 km/hr. The company states it will minimise the ‘burden of driving’ and ‘seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys’. Now, while the latter may be true to some extent; we do not understand what exactly is burden of driving.
While the innovation is worth the applause and will certainly find more value in the future; as car enthusiasts you can’t end this post without taking offence to an extent. Clearly, Google is convinced that drivers are going dumb by the day (which is not surprising, considering they are subjected to some of the weirdest searches), who will not love cars in the future or the pleasure of driving. We do feel that the joy of driving lies with the human involvement and we have a whole lifestyle based on the very aspect. Do checkout the video below that captures the first reactions of passengers in the self driving car.
[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqSDWoAhvLU 540 375]
