“Nothing
is going to change overnight, but (Google's announcement) is another sign of
the drastic shifts in automotive technology, business practices and retailing
we're going to witness”
Senior Analyst at
Kelley Blue Book's KBB.com, Karl Brauer, commenting on Google's Launch of their
Self-Driving Vehicle on Tuesday May 27th 2014 by Google CEO Sergey Brin at the Recode Code Conference in Palos
Verdes, California
Google
has developed the first truly driverless Cars that require no human intervention
whatsoever as described in “Google
unveils self-driving car, sans steering wheel”, published May 27, 2014 7:43
PM PDT by Steven Musil, CNET News.
Interestingly Google has plans to make them common place by 2017, latest 2020.
This
coincides with timeline of the EU (European Union) ASTRAEA (Autonomous Systems
Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment) Consortium plans to
have aircraft fly themselves using an onboard AI (Artificial Intelligence)
completely without the need for Airline Pilots as described in my blog article entitled “ASTRAEA
Consortium makes first Inaugural flight of an Autonomous Passenger Aircraft in
April 2013 - Greek Goddeses Daughter of Zeus are now The Kings of Summer”.
Google
CEO Sergey Brin on Tuesday May 27th 2014 launched their scratch-built
two-seater US$150,000 prototype during an onstage interview at the Recode Code
Conference in Palos Verdes, California. Built with the help of companies that
specialize in building and designing custom cars in Detroit, once you get over
the fact that it has a striking resemblance to a VW Bug, you're in for another
surprise:
1.
100 Km Range on a
Single charge
2.
All-Electric Vehicle
3.
Controlled by Voice
Commands or your smartphone
4.
Fixed Speed Limit of 25
mph (15 km/h)
5.
Has 2 Seats at the back
6.
No Accelerator
7.
No Brakes
8.
No Steering wheel
9.
Parking brake,
10.
Price-tag of US$150,000 electric
11.
Side and rear-view mirrors
12.
Standard NHTSA-approved glass
windshield,
That's
right folks!
This
is fairly big news in Jamaica as well as it made our local Newspapers as noted
in “Google
aims to put 100 truly driverless cars on the road next year”, published
Sunday, June 01, 2014, The Jamaica
Observer as it’s a first of its kind anywhere in the world.
Google’s NHTSA-approved
Neighborhood Electric Vehicle – 25 mph Limit for
a AI Chauffeur
This
Vehicle not only is Autonomous, but there is no means of overriding the Vehicle
save for a Red panic Button. This really parks the Vehicle, instead of popping
out those missing accessories and giving you control of the Vehicle once more.
Then
again, at 25 mph (15 km/h) as its fixed speed, not much can happen to you on
the road with this slowpoke of an All-Electric Vehicle. Thanks to its speed,
it’s classified by the NHTSA (U.S. Department of
Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) as a Low-
Speed Vehicle.
Its
efficient AI driving and smaller size, makes it very nimble and a lot more
efficient at negotiating the busy roadways as explained in “Even
limited to 25 mps, Google's Car will arrrive faster than you think”,
published May 29, 2014 4:00 AM PDT by Seth Rosenblatt, CNET News.
More specifically, it’s a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, as
Google’s clearly intent on changing our driving habits from individual Vehicle
ownership to a more communal Taxi-like affair, to quote Co-director of the
Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California,
Berkeley, Susan Shaheen: “The speed restriction [of 25 mph] falls into this
classification of the Neighborhood Electric Vehicle. These are cars that are
uniquely different from a standard vehicle, and may be considered as an
alternative to vehicle ownership”.
This
is a drastic departure from other companies such as Volvo and their SARTRE
(Safe Road Trains for the Environment) Project who are pursing the goal of
driver-less Vehicles as explained in my blog article entitled “Volvo
Testing Autonomous Motor Vehicles in Spain in Live Traffic - EU Project SARTRE
adds self-driving AI with smartphone Control” but with the regular Vehicle controls
intact.
You
are, in effect, under the complete control of this Chauffeur-driven All-Electric
Vehicle that makes decisions as it relates to driving you in safety and
negotiating the dangers of the road while snugly seated in back. Only this time
the Chauffeur is an AI (Artificial Intelligence) Program, the thought of which
already has me worried as noted in my blog article
entitled “Google
and AI - I Robot”.
Still,
I must give props to Google for pushing the development of Self-Driving Cars to
its zenith, as these VW Bug shaped Vehicles literally drive themselves, guided
only by Google Maps, GPS and a battery of sensors including Lidar (Light
Radar), Proximity Sensors and Cameras.
The
fully autonomous All-Electric Vehicle literally drives on a combination of
Lidar-Based maps overlayed with Google Maps with additional real-time inputs
from its array of sensors. Bristling with that much technology means that there
really is no need to have a driver, as the vehicle can basically drive itself.
Fully Autonomous Vehicles
by 2015 – Black Boxes makes Crashes straightforward as Aeroplane Crashs
For
those of you who are patient enough to troll through my
sometimes-super-long-and-difficult-to-read thought articles, you may have
realized that I’m not really a big fan of Autonomous Vehicles. This as they’re
basically a computer on wheels that makes them a great target for hackers as
stated in my Geezam
blog article entitled “Intel’s
McAfee researches Virus attacks on All-Electric Vehicles as AI’s Project SARTRE
hits the road”.
In a case where the Vehicle is a Taxi, I suspect it may be
the company that owns the Vehicles, as they're reputation is on the line and
they'd be culpable based on evidence from the Black Box. If it's owned by the
Driver, then the purchaser of the Vehicle is culpable once it can be
established by a third party investigator checking the Vehicle's Black Box that
there was no malfunction in the Electronics or any attempt by the passenger to
circumvent the controls of the Vehicle from the AI.
Note here “Malfunction” may possible be anything from the AI
following incorrect map directions from Google Maps, failure of one or more of
the sensors on the Vehicle. The worst case scenario is where the Vehicle's
on-board computer was hacked in a manner similar to the Refrigerator hack as
described in my blog article entitled “Proofpoint
says Refridgerator hacked and used to send Spam email - Internet of Things
Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines for hacker's DDOS and Spambots” and
possibly was remotely controlled by a third party.
At that point, Police investigators would step in and based
on information from the Vehicle's Black Box would seek to determine who the
hackers are and thus charge them for vehicular homicide, as it's clearly an
attempt to kill the occupants of the Vehicle.
The beauty of this scenario is that with Self-Driving
Vehicles, the investigation becomes a lot like using a smartphone on a victim
to solve a crime. On this time, the devices from which you extract information
is NOT a smartphone but the Vehicle’s Black Box, order to determine culpability,
something that's never been a standard feature in Motor Vehicles.
Combined with the fact that the NHTSA will make it standard
by Tuesday May 1st 2018 that all Vehicles will have to have a
Rear-View Camera to assist drivers with reversing as declared in my
blog article
entitled “NHTSA
passes ruling for Car Manufacturers to install Rear-View Cameras by Tuesday May
1st 2018 - Self-Driving Cars First Steps as Jamaica falls behind in Vehicle
Regulations”, Self-Driving Vehicles may be coming a lot sooner than Google
expects.
Google 100 strong Fleet
of Vehicles that Drive themselves – Self-Driving Cars by 2015
But you still have to admire the engineering of this Vehicle
at its most basic level. It’s an All-Electric Vehicle, a fact that scores
several brownie points with my environmentally-conscious thinking. I especially
like the fact that its Voice Command controlled with the option to use your
Google Android smartphone or Tablet with an App to request this Vehicle to come
and pick you up.
I thus see this Self-Driving All-Electric being used as a
replacement for Taxis in California first by the Summer 2015 during their Test
pilot which will involve 100 Vehicles being deployed in a Beta Test Project.
This is in a manner similar to the Google Glass product, which will also be
launched in 2015 as explained in my blog article entitled “Google
Glass launched early as a Product - Google pre-empting Samsung Galaxy Glass and
Facebook's Oculus Rift replacing the smartphone in 2015 the Year of the Sheep”.
Hopefully by then California's DMV (Department of Motor
Vehicles) would have made it known to Californian drivers who is liable in an
accident involving a Self-Driving All-Electric Vehicle base on the Vehicle’s
Black Box. This makes things a lot easier for California's DMV, as a Black Box
makes things clear cut and straightforward, just like an aeroplane crash.
Currently testing is being done this Summer of 2014 in
California, but with versions of Google’s All-Electric Vehicle sporting a
steering wheel, brake and gas pedal in compliance with Californian law.
Eventually by the Summer of 2015, when the 100 strong prototypes roll out, many
Americans will want to be chauffeur driven about by this cute looking AI!
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