Google's
self-driving Buggy Car should have hit the road last Summer in 2014 as noted in
my blog article
entitled “Google
100 strong Fully Autonomous All-Electric Vehicles launched – 25 mph Limit on AI
Chauffeur in 2015 with Black Boxes makes Crashes like aeroplanes”.
But
that never occurred.
However,
the Summer of 2015 looks like the year, as Google has now promised that their
little self-driving fully autonomous pods will be roaming about the streets of
Mountain View, California in June 2015 as reported in the article “Robo-car,
go! Google's latest self-driving prototypes are heading to public roadways”,
published May 15, 2015 by Lance Whitney, CNET
News and “Google’s
Self-Driving Cars Will Hit Public Roads In Mountain View This Summer”,
published May 15, 2015 by Jon Russell, Techcrunch.
So
say’s Google in their official Blog article “Green
lights for our self-driving vehicle prototypes”, published Friday, May 15, 2015,
Google Official Blog.
These
twenty five (25) VW Beetle All-Electric Vehicle lookalikes have more in common
with the United Kingdom’s US$25 million dollar push to develop Driverless pods
to carry British and Tourists around, with potential savings in terms of
reduced accidents, fuel as well as increased productivity as noted in my blog article entitled “How
Britain will make US$29 billion from Driverless Cars by 2025 - British
Government's US$29 million Driverless Vehicles Gamble”.
So
what is Google’s plan for these driverless pods now being finally unleashed
upon the streets of Mountain View, California to test their driving skill in
the real World? It is a multi-tentacled plot, like an octopus, to attack several
competitors at once.
Google’s Self-Driving
Car Pods – 25 Self-Driving Vehicle to get a feel for the Road
They’re
somewhat related to their other fleet of autonomous vehicles, a set of Lexuses bristling
with LIDAR, Radar, sonar and other sensors.
These
self-driving buggys differ, however, in one main aspect, in that they they’re totally
designed from the ground up by Google as noted in the article “GOOGLE
WILL UNLEASH ITS SELF-DRIVING CARS ON PUBLIC ROADS THIS SUMMER”, published
May 18, 2015 By Karen Tumbokon, DigitalTrends.
They've
also been improved upon since June 2014 when the first video came out of the
Google self-Driving Buggy being shown to some complete strangers.
The speed is still set at 40.2 kph (25 mph), with the self-driving All-Electric
Vehicle prototypes now having a steering wheel, accelerator pedal and brake
pedal to allow the designated driver to take over should they feel the need to
do so. And yes, this new model has
headlights to replace those painted on eyes of the first model.
These
twenty five (25) as-yet-to-be-named self driving cars have been tested
extensively at Google's indoor testing facility to make sure that the sensors
and software work properly and are sensing their environment in a way that'll
make them roadworthy enough to handle any situation when they make their
Mountain View, California debut.
Google self-Driving
Vehicle Ambitions – Responsibility during accidents and Rough Driving experience
required
The
aim is for these self-driving Google Pods to rack up at least 16093 km (10,000
miles) each week on the streets of California and acquaint themselves with Californian
Road Rules.
Eventually,
if perfected to the point where these All-Electric self-driving pods can be
recharged via solar power alone, Google plans to use them for everything from delivery
Services to carrying around humans in a Ride-sharing equivalent of Uber or Lyft
as pointed out in the article “Google
sees ride sharing, solar power in the future of its self driving car”, published
April 24, 2015 By Alexander Kalogianni, DigitalTrends.
Albeit
I’m not sure how many Californians would gladly jump into a Google equivalent
of Uber with no driver!
Google
would also stand to make money from licensing their technology to Corporate and
Enterprise entities in order to reduce their transportation costs and make
their employees more productive.
Not
only would road accidents be reduced, but so would the need for parking, as they’d
always be either on the move to pick up someone or some package as they’d recharge
via solar power as noted in the article “Self-Driving
Cars Would Slash Traffic, End Street Parking”, published 5/07/2015 by Neil
Winton, Forbes.
It
is also to allow the vehicle to learn how to handle themselves in unusual situations
that may constitute less than 1% of regular road travel. Good to note here that
California's roads are nearly perfectly flat concrete wastelands that stretch
for miles in this country that's many times the size of Jamaica.
They
might work well in this Developed World country where they have parking lots
and lots of concrete roadways as show in the example using Audi. But they certainly
would fail miserably in a Third World Country like Jamaica where proper roads
are non-existent and road conditions are not so perfect for just straight
ordinary driving.
In
fact, they’d be easily crushed in an accident, the main problem that I have
with their design which looks a little flimsy. And yes, Google and Californian
lawmakers haven’t sorted out who is at fault during an accident.
For
Google; for the next road test, it would be good to send a few of them to the mean
streets of India, Bangladesh, Accra in Ghana or even here in Jamaica. If they
can survive driving in those countries, they can drive anywhere else just fine.
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