Overview
The future is officially here, and the subject of many-a sci-fi novel and the dream of every comic book geek is set to become a mass-produceable reality.
Google have been the brains and big bucks behind this astounding innovation, with the company's founder Sergey Brin stating that "you can count on one hand the number of years until ordinary people can experience this."
This story has been doing the rounds on social media in the recent weeks following California governor Jerry Brown's signing of SB1298, a law which makes driverless cars legal in the state of California. While the project is still in the prototype stage, Google's driverless cars have now done more than 300,000 miles of travel without incident, which at this stage makes them statistically safer than normal automobiles.
According to Brin, driverless cars will revolutionise the way we travel and commute. Anyone, and they mean anyone, can "drive" Google's driverless cars, with the elderly, the young, the blind and perhaps most significantly the intoxicated all capable of operating the self-driving car. Similarly, traffic could become a thing of the past if we are to believe Brin's analysis.
"Why does the congestion happen to begin with? The fact is that on a normally operating highway, cars take up a very small fraction of the space. Mostly it's just air between you the the car in front of you, to the sides of you, and so forth. Self-driving cars can actually 'chain together' and use the highways more efficiently, potentially eradicating congestion" he said.
While the image of thousands of cars roaring down the highway "chained together" does really like sound something out of a Ridley Scott film, Google are confident this image could become a reality in the coming years.
The big question for most people in the advent of self-driving cars has been one of safety. Can we trust these things or are we looking at some sort of Matrix-style revolution where artificial intelligence takes over the world? In terms of accidents, so far so good. The only significant accident involving a self-driving car occurred when a driver was operating the car in manual mode. Google as well has stated that self-driving cars will never run a red light and so we are close to reaching a point where driverless cars may not only be the most ultra-modern driving experience but also the safest.
While there are a long list of "what ifs" Google are still trying to iron out and overcome, if you are hoping to turn your Prius into something worthy of a James Bond film, have a look at this video to see what the ever-closer future will look like.
