Google launches steering-less, driverless car

Tired of driving at snail’s pace in Dubai traffic? Exhausted looking for a parking slot in Dubai Mall over the weekend? Just press go. Really.

Google has just launched its self-driving car which it built from scratch. The strangest thing: the vehicle that has no steering wheel or accelerator or brake pedals.

The search giant’s CEO Sergey Brin unveiled a two-seater prototype of the vehicle yesterday. We’ve had vehicles without the clutch (automatic) for a while now, but instead of the other indispensable (or so we thought) controls, Google’s prototype relies on built-in sensors and a software system to safely manoeuvre the vehicle.

Watch the video here:

“Ever since we started the Google self-driving car project, we’ve been working toward the goal of vehicles that can shoulder the entire burden of driving. Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History,” Google said in a blog post [https://googleblog.blogspot.ae/2014/05/just-press-go-designing-self-driving.html].

The search giant said it is now exploring what fully self-driving vehicles would look like by building some prototypes; they’ll be designed to operate safely and autonomously without requiring human intervention. Google said its cars won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal… because they don’t need them.

“Our software and sensors do all the work. The vehicles will be very basic – we want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible – but they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And that's an important step toward improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people,” it noted.

The company is planning to build about a hundred prototype vehicles, and later this summer, its safety drivers will start testing early versions of these vehicles that have manual controls. “If all goes well, we’d like to run a small pilot program in California in the next couple of years, says Google.

“We’re going to learn a lot from this experience, and if the technology develops as we hope, we’ll work with partners to bring this technology into the world safely.”

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