Toyota Prius To Be The First Driverless Car

[sushd]

Google gets Nevada driving licence for self-drive car

Driverless cars will soon be a reality on the roads of Nevada after the state approved America's first self-driven vehicle licence.

The first to hit the highway will be a Toyota Prius modified by search firm Google, which is leading the way in driverless car technology.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

A Google self drive car eh? Is that the one that takes you via the sponsors shops on :)

[ph47mf]

i do wonder why we need this.

[Hybrid Harbour]

i do wonder why we need this.

No doubt anyone who has had to give up driving because of failing eyesight or people who are totally blind and still want Independence will think we do.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Why bother doing anything at all?

We don't walk now, but then we won't even drive we'll just get driven. We don't need to go to the shops any more as we can buy it all on the internet. We can get our food delivered and in the future that'll be delivered by driverless vans. Probably be grown for us. We won't have to go to work as we can work from home.

Great. We can all become big fat blobs sitting in front of the computer all day.

Count me out thanks.

[timberwolf]

I'd like every car to be auto-drive now. I'm not interested in driving and unless the traffic is light it is just an unpleasant chore. I don't like circling streets and car parks looking for a parking space, let the car do that. When I am ready to go somewhere else, I get out my mobile phone that already knows my location and shows me a map of where I am and where the car is, and I select a pick up point - perhaps there will be designated pick up points that I can walk to, cars will be banned from all shopping, business and housing districts - they'll be kept to the edges of these areas. We'll have robots to carry the heavier shopping to our houses and bicycles to get around and to the edge of the districts (where the cars will live out on the fringes and in time they'll forget about humans and roam in packs).

Probably won't happen any time soon though, so I wouldn't worry about it Grumpy, and you probably couldn't afford the technology anyway?

[Parts-King]

Will it catch on and will it get past legislation world wide? I doubt it

It has been done because it can, doesnt mean it will ever be launched

Kingo

[wass]

Is this a new idea? I thought that somebody tried something like this every decade since the 1960s

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Is this a new idea? I thought that somebody tried something like this every decade since the 1960s

They have, but in the same way that every decade they've tried to invent a 'robot', which have gone from some remote controlled nonsense to Asimo. Same with driverless cars; first they followed magnetic strips in the road (or whatever) and now they can actually drive in traffic on streets. Watch the following clip from the Germans - the Passatt Estate is their driverless car and seems to be doing ok on their busy city streets - even when that BMW cut it up at the junction!

It did cut that bus up a little towards the end of the clip though didn't it? :)