It is time for you to relax back at your seat and enjoy reading your newspaper while your car drives yourself to your desired destination. Google is developing a car which uses intelligence to drive it and does not need human touch to do so. Google is using Toyota Pruises, six in number and Audi TT for this project.
It was reported that Google is road testing these cars. Seven test cars have driven 1000miles by themselves without any human touch and it was a real surprise the rest of the 1,40,000 miles was driven only by the help of a little bit of human touch. The aim of this superbly surprising project is to “help prevent traffic accidents, free up people's time and reduce carbon emissions" through ride sharing and "the new 'highway trains of tomorrow,’” project leader Sebastian Thrun wrote Saturday on Google's corporate blog.
These automated cars drove from the Mountain View campus of Google to their Santa Monica office and then again to Hollywood Boulevard. The cars crossed Lombard Street, went through Golden Gate, went around the Pacific Coast Highway and then again took a ride around Lake Tahoe.
The engineers who worked behind this car were from DARPA Challenges. The question of safety was considered to be of prime importance in this project. There were trained safety drivers and trained software operators in the car to rake control of the situation whenever it was necessary. Familiarization with lane markers and traffic signals made the cars conditioned to the environment and state of the roads.
According to World Health Organization, a reported death of 1.2 million people occurs every year due to road accidents. Google believes strongly that their car boosted by the unique technology can almost reduce the number to a half of the figure. During the test drive the only accident that occurred was when one Google car rear ended when stopped at a traffic light. These cars are also fuel-efficient and can be programmed for different driving personalities.