Google Unveils Driverless Car

Oh my, and what a beauty it is! Google's driverless car is finally here! Two seats, goes up to 25mph, and with no steering wheel, or pedals! That should make you feel really safe and comfortable as you tool on down the Interstate with everybody pointing and snickering at you. 

Google's prototype electric driverless car has been unveiled at the company's California headquarters in Mountainview. Google has actually demonstrated the car on the open road, a design that does away with all of those complicated and now irrelevant conventional controls, and says it will build 100 of the vehicles for testing with the eventual aim of "bringing this technology to the world safely". 

The company had for several years been testing everyday cars equipped with sensors, navigation equipment and computers to drive themselves but in the meantime it has secretly developed a prototype from scratch that will have no facility for a human to take control, other than an emergency stop button. 

The initial 100 testbed versions will retain manual controls because those controls are needed to comply with the laws in California which along with Nevada and Florida allow autonomous vehicles only if a driver can take charge in the event of something potentially catastrophic, like running over pedestrians or into other non-autonomous cars. 

Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car project, said the aim was to run extended tests in California where Google is based. Urmson argued driverless cars would improve road safety, calling the development "an important step toward improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people". Google said its testing had suggested it was safer to remove conventional controls altogether because the results of a human having to take over suddenly and unexpectedly were unpredictable and potentially dangerous. “We saw stuff that made us a little nervous,” Urmson says. 

The tiny little toy-like concept vehicle has a screen displaying the route it thinks you're taking and an array of sensors that allow the vehicle's computer to determine its location and surroundings, and it can actually "see" for several hundred yards, according to Google.