Sebastian Thrun, leader of Google's driverless car project, talked about the technology of self-driven cars at TED Talks, claiming it could save one million lives each year if it would replace human driving.
Google's test cars have so far covered over 140,000 miles (225,300 km) in all types of driving conditions without a single fault. “People didn't even notice” Google's cars were not driven by humans, said Thrun, who lost his best friend to a car accident when he was 18. The Stanford professor of computer science said that moment made him decide dedicating his life to saving one million people every year.
Apart from saving human lives, Thrun claims the technology could also lead to a more efficient and more rapid transport, with narrower lanes and syncronised traffic bringing an end to jams and fuel wasting. He hopes future generations “will look back at us and say how ridiculous it was that humans were driving cars.”
Scroll down to watch Google's driver-less cars (Toyota Prius) in action and let us know if you look forward to a future when you will be driven by your cars, not the other way round.
By Dan Mihalascu
Source: Youtube / Tedtalks via Worldcarfans
19 Comments:
We will look forward to your first car to back up your hyperbole.......................
I look forward to the first time one of his cars crashes. I just hope it doesn't kill anyone.
Fine and dandy, but I wanna see the 1st person that get's pulled over in one of these cars, to try an explain to a California cop why their car has no driver. So will driver less cars have to apply for their own driving licence?
this experiment has a good intention, but to me why have a car if you didnt drive it, it just make people more lazy...
...until a computer glitch happens and a whole town is wiped out! :)
That guy speaks like a robot... maybe he is one?
i should invent a virus...
"Fine and dandy, but I wanna see the 1st person that get's pulled over in one of these cars"
lets think about this some more, what exactly are the legal ramifications here, I was under the impression a leagaly licensed driver is required to operate a motor vehicle, what special permits or permissions have been granted to google to allow them to conduct these types of experiments on public roads??????????
Will see...
But why the title is so heavily capitalized?
Great just what we need, 1 million more people on this planet that nature had previously deemed unsuitable due to lack of driving skills.
There will be crashes and there will be deaths, but much less than now.
If Google's driverless cars are guided by Google maps then you would often wind up on a street that doesn't exist.
Interesting. But now I'd like to see how a couple dozen of these cars react around each other. Could be fun to watch.
It seems like a great idea until you see that semi coming at you in the opposite lane.
Driverless car? It's called a bus
Just because we've got the technology to put a toaster in a mobile phone doesn't mean we should do that ;-)
What's the point? you don't like driving? take a bus!
driverless cars? ...the road to hell is paved with good intensions... or something like that, I am not an english native speaker :-)... someone should stop google, because they will rule the world in 10 years - they have your emails, they know what you search for on the web, they will know what you watch on your TV and then they will know where are you driving... ...there are some russian guys in ther, aren´t?...maybe some KGB support? :-)
I'm a bit afraid of the idea because especially with statements like this you know some politicians will try to make this feature "mandatory" in the future and you won't even have the option of enjoying a nice Sunday drive.
The worry is that some prat will outlaw the human driver thus taking away the favourite activity of millions and lots of jobs. The Thrun guy has good intentions but it will ruin more peoples lives then it saves
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