Self-Driving Cars: Now a Reality

In this era of advanced technology, we have seen countless inventions aimed at improving life as we know it, and now you can add to that list self-driving cars. That’s right, we are extremely close to the age of self-driving vehicles, although there are a few setbacks. The leader in making these cars is none other than tech-giant Google. According to an article for Car Magazine written by Tim Pollard, Google worked with other car companies like Lexus and Prius on their current models, but as of May 2014 they officially announced that designed their own vehicle (the likes of which are shown below). Pollard says in the article that the “technology company will start competing with traditional car makers within the next 12 months.” So maybe we are a lot closer to driverless vehicles than you may have previously thought. Either way there are definite challenges and drawbacks to self-driving cars, making the development and integration of these cars in the future extremely difficult. Let’s take a look at some of these difficulties.

First off its worth noting that author Adrienne Lafrance of the Atlantic states that in the six years Google has been working on the cars (since 2009) it has only been involved in 12 minor accidents, in none of which the car was to blame. Its true, every accident the cars have been in have been at the fault of human. In an accident in 2011, a Google employee had “borrowed the car to run a quick errand and ended up rear-ending another car” (Lafrance, Adrianne). So it is shown that up to this point, the Google car has an impeccable driving record. Why then is it not yet out on the roads? Oddly enough the car’s biggest problem is interacting with human drivers. As a New York Times article written by Matt Richtel and Conor Dougherty puts it, “one of the biggest challenges facing autonomous cars is blending them into a world in which humans don’t behave by the book.” The article goes on to cite Donald Norman, director of the Design Lab at the University of California, saying “the real problem is that the car is too safe.” What does this mean exactly? Well take a test Google ran in 2009 for example. The car “couldn’t get through a four-way stop because its sensors kept waiting for other (human) drivers to stop completely and let it go. The human drivers kept inching forward, looking for the advantage-paralyzing Google’s robot” (Richtel and Dougherty).  It is extremely difficult for the car to function the way it was programmed to, by following the law perfectly, when human drivers all around are not doing the same. Donald Norman was also quoted saying “they have to learn to be aggressive in the right amount, and the right amount depends on the culture” (Richter and Dougherty).

Here’s exactly what the Google vehicle sees, using its various lasers and detection systems. (Via CityLab.com)

Other problems may include hackers, weather and other challenges like “when an autonomous car breaks down on the highway” (Richter and Dougherty). According to Lafrance’s article in the Atlantic, most accidents are happening in intersections and are caused by human negligence. People are driving distracted far too much, with the article quoting Google saying, “our safety drivers routinely see people weaving in and out of their lanes…we’ve spotted people reading books, and even one playing a trumpet.” Now it is easily seen that most of these accidents fault humans, but to reinforce this the New York Times article cites Bill Windsor, a safety expert with Nationwide Insurance, as saying “the technology, like Google’s car, drives by the book. It leaves what is considered the safe distance between itself and the car ahead. This also happens to be enough space for a car in an adjoining lane to squeeze into, and they often tried.” Dmitri Dolgov, head of software for Google’s Self-Driving Car, possible sums these issues up best by saying, “human drivers need to be less idiotic” (Richter and Dougherty).

The design of Google’s self-driving car. (via Google)

The design of the car also deserves attention. The article written by Tim Pollard of Car Magazine states that “Google says its self-driving car will have a stop-go button, but no steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedal.” To me this is concerning as it offers the human inside the car no chance to take over for the car if he/she feels the need to. The article does say that there will be a emergency button that stops the car if whoever is inside doesn’t feel safe. Although the costs of these cars is not yet known since they have yet to be commercialized, I would imagine them being quite expensive. This would create a mixture of human drivers (those who could not afford the Google car) and autonomous cars (those who could afford them) which we have previously determined was an extremely dangerous mixture and one of the car’s biggest issues. The car also has a top speed of just 25 miles-per-hour (Pollard). Not only this, but the car has only enough room for two passengers. This design will not appeal to many, as the cost will most likely make this lack of space unworthy of purchase. However, despite all these issues, “Google has confirmed its intention to launch the first autonomous car in 2015” (Pollard). So when it comes to the Google self-driving car, I guess we’re just going to have to wait and see…

 

Here’s a video of Google’s car, via ABC News:

Works Cited

LaFrance, Adrienne. “When Google Self-Driving Cars Are in Accidents, Humans Are to Blame.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 08 June 2015. Web. 24 Nov. 2015.

Pollard, Tim. “10 Things You Might Not Know about Google’s Driverless Car.” CAR Magazine. Bauer Consumer Media Ltd, 29 May 2014. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

Richtel, Matt, and Conor Dougherty. “Google’s Driverless Cars Run Into Problem: Cars With Drivers.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 01 Sept. 2015. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.

3 thoughts on “Self-Driving Cars: Now a Reality

  1. Pingback: Driverless cars: futuro possibile? – DIGITAL AUTOMOBILE

  2. pjt5135

    Ryan, I have been following the creation of self-driving cars for a while now so I was excited and am now satisfied having read your article. I think the first fault you discussed is the most pressing and perhaps only legitimate obstacle left: that humans do not drive by the prescribed rules of the road. An activity that involves so many humans at once cannot be made ENTIRELY automated. There has to be a certain element and certain amount of human intuition put into the design to account for the dynamic nature of the road.

    Problems like lack of speed and other logistical problems are not of utmost importance, at least at the moment, until the primary concern can be resolved.

  3. Jonathan Solimano

    I really enjoyed reading this blog, because growing up I have always been a huge fan of cars, and have been keeping up to date with all of the self driving cars of the future. Personally, I am a huge Mercedes fan and they are very close to having a working model of a car like this. It is mind blowing to me to think that cars will soon be driving themselves all based off of computers. I do not think it is a good idea personally, because of the errors that can happen with computers; all it takes is one mistake and their can be hundreds if not thousands of accidents worldwide. Here is an awesome video on the Mercedes car, to me it looks pretty awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2r3fEPWRs

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