In a piece in the New York Times over the weekend, they pull back the curtains on an exciting experiment between Google (GOOG) and Toyota (TM) – self driving cars. Google has been testing self driving Prius’s in secret for some time which use AI software, cameras and GPS to try to mimic human driving.
According to the article, seven cars have driven 1000 miles completely autonomously and another 140K miles with some human intervention. The only accident according to engineers was when a Google car was rear ended! Impressive and exciting. Technologists believe the technology can one day can have a profound impact by doubling the capacity of roads, improving fuel efficiency further and greatly improving road safety. Improved safety as long as the computer doesn’t .. crash!
We should be spending the recovery money on self diving car R&D and not on road expansion. The use of self driving cars will get rid of our road congestion.