Google’s Quest To Bring Truly Autonomous Cars To Market
Google was one of the first companies to have started working on driverless cars and have shocked analysts all over the world with the speed at which they have advanced the technology. Their program went from being considered another one of its many ‘moonshots’ to something that is now an inevitable technological step in the near future.
Google and it’s almost Lego-like pod cars are distinctive and almost built to be friendly in appearance. After all, in a world where people are weary of handing over complete control to AI on the roads, having a menacing sports car may not be the perfect poster car for the cause!
One of the more interesting things about Google’s latest prototype cars is that they do not have a steering when at all. They are built to be completely autonomous under all circumstances. The National Highway Traffic Safety Authority rates cars on four different levels of autonomous functionality from L1 to L4.
L1 are cars that rely only on human input and L4 are cars that are completely autonomous. Google believes that interim levels of autonomous function as seen in cars like Tesla are not enough to fulfill the goals it set for itself and is, therefore, concentrating on L4 technology only.
Ford is the one other company that seems to be on the same page as Google, while others like Toyota, GM or spares manufacturers like Delphi believe that L3 cars are the way to go forward. It is easy to see why Delphi might believe retrofitting a car with sensors and radars means a steep jump in profits but Google may be right when they say that taking humans out of the equation altogether is the way forward.
A few years into their program, Google decided to fit their cars with cameras and see if humans could stay alert when not requiring to do anything over a long period of time and found that humans are remarkably comfortable taking a nap when the car is doing all the thinking! Tesla drivers have been uploading videos doing crazy antics in the car with their semi-autonomous drive assist software proving Google’s assertion even more.
It is also not like humans have not been traveling by autonomous modes of transport already. Our planes today fly themselves for most of the times and in fact, have been criticized for being difficult to take over by pilots in certain conditions.
Google realizes that the path to having completely autonomous cars on the roads is not going to be easy. It has armed itself with an army of lawyers and lobbyists to help pass favorable regulations and is holding outreach programs already.
It is also working towards developing meaningful partnerships with automakers. Google has stated categorically that it does not plan on making its own cars but in fact wants to develop the software powering autonomous cars from different manufacturers.
Google wants to replicate the success of Android in the car space and this may be one of the reasons why potential partners are wary of giving up to much control to the search behemoth. The road that Google has chosen for itself is the most ambitious and revolutionary one. It does not seem to be interested in software that hands-off to humans in critical situations and has the data to prove its point. It may find now that developing the ultimate self-driving car is easier than actually bringing it on the roads.
