Tuesday night at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, Google founder Sergey Brin revealed a new take on the self-driving car, one that doesn’t even come with a steering wheel. While many people are skeptical on the future of self-driving cars, including Tesla founder Elon Musk, it’s hard to not imagine a world of autonomous vehicles shuttling individuals from one location to the next in the near future.
The Google Car is full electric and big enough for two passengers. The vehicle looks like something out of the world of Hello Kitty, featuring a big smiley front end with big round headlights that look like eyes. Made up of compressible foam, a plastic windshield and a dual-motor system, nothing about this vehicle is ordinary. The current version only goes 25 mph, but that will surely change in a future production model.
Passengers are only required to do three things after entering the vehicle: put on their seatbelt,press the Start button and input their planned destination. Once in motion the vehicle has a large screen in the center console that can show outside temperature, time remaining on your trip, or just about any type of multimedia you can think of.
Google is currently testing 100 or so of these vehicle in California and are shooting for a goal of 2020 to release them to the public. Almost all car manufacturers will agree that autonomous vehicles are a good, feasible idea and the technology is almost there.
Would you be willing to trade in your vehicle for a self-driving car? Why or why not?
