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Google builds its self-driving car
The self-driving car is a reality and within a year it could circulate in the streets with only two passengers on board. And Google built it.
After a number of trials and tests on vehicles built by other manufacturers, Google officially started to build its own self-driving car. Electric.
The car will seat two people, its nose is fun, almost smiling, and aims to insert itself in the collective imagination as a safe and reliable means of transport. It has no controls except for the start/stop button.
The smiling car
According to what the BBC reported, it seems almost a cartoon-like car. It has no traditional bonnet at the front but one purposely designed to increase pedestrians’ safety. It is narrower than common cars and made with a soft material that would reduce the seriousness of accidents. To this effect the speed was limited to 40 km/h.
To drive autonomously it uses a combination of laser and radar sensors along with a camera that collects data. And, inevitably, its computer includes all Google’s maps adapted and tested specifically to provide the vehicle with the complete street network you are travelling. Up to now, self-driving cars have covered a distance of over one million kilometres without any problems.
No controls
Although according to its manufacturers it could become the safest car in circulation, Sven Beiker, executive director of the Centre for automotive research at Stanford, claims that driverless cars should require human inputs in case of emergency.
Google plans to build in Detroit, United States, a fleet of 200 cars within a year, revolutionising the transport sector with safer streets, no accidents and reducing traffic and pollution.
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