Google Self-Driving Car

It may have two seats, seat belts, and room for storage, but if it doesn’t have side airbags it’s not legal to sell in the
United States. Of course no one said they were going to sell them…

As long as they stay on the sidewalk I have no problem with them.

when do you think the hoarding of “freedom cars” begin? :slight_smile:

Yo: I’ve actually thought about this. As a car fan and someone who enjoys driving it’s hard to believe us dinosaurs will be allowed to drive the same place as the google-mobiles. I guess I can give up design and drive a car around Central Park or Old Montreal in place of the horse driven carriages they use today!

Having lived in some pretty dense places, I get the desire for an autonomous car. I’ve sat in LA traffic for 2-3 hours… sitting in that I’d much rather be sitting back reading or doing some email vs driving the car myself, I just want it to be a 350+ hp beast that I can flip into full manual mode when there is no traffic… and not have it report my driving data.

Having just completed one week and dreading another three weeks of training in San Ramon (and driving back down the coast to Pismo Beach each weekend (350 miles) sure clues me into the inspiration behind the driverless car, but I don’t think I’d care to be in one while surrounded by the moronic drivers in the Bay Area. I would find it totally unsettling - no way I could do anything other than cringe at the prospect of be rear-ended any second.

Personally, I don’t see how anyone can even drive a Smart Car, or other micro, on the freeways.

I think the person that has a head on collision with a semi will always be the loser.

I don’t think you can say “always”. The Gross Tonnage Rule (in boating) states that he with the most tonnage wins, regardless of who has right of way. The closer the two combatants are in size tends to mitigate damage.

How this guy got himself lodged into the wheel well of this truck is hard to imagine, but I don’t think a full size car would have crumpled to the extent that this car did. Not saying that micros shouldn’t be on the road, just not on the freeway. At least I wouldn’t venture out in one.

The google result seems to have the same to matter what the size of the car.


An even match however:

To hit the real heart of the American buyer, Google needs to build something with the weight an presence of an SUV and look intimidating. Guessing blacked out, two inch high windows, Cylon red light scan in front. But that is for the future when they have gained market acceptance. The Wallace and Gromit car look is nice and non threatening for opening the door.

Just call Ford:

Yeah I’ve seen enough horrible crashes even in giant SUV’s to know that any impact with a large truck it doesn’t matter if you’re in a 1 Ton Smart car or a 3 Ton Land Rover - the results can often be bad. Case in point, here’s my 3 series when vs the back of a semi (which is less force but more danger due to submerging under the trailer).

And yes - the driver was killed.

The IIHS gives the Smart very good reviews - http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/smart/fortwo and I recall seeing a video where they purposely smashed a Smart into a brick wall at a very high speed and the “safety cage” held up completely.

Again, the car has a top speed of 25mph - limiting the risks quite a bit.

My girlfriend and I have had the autonomous car several times over a year into the course of our shared hour + drive commute, so when the news popped up the other day we began discussing it again. One of the tensions that is always highlighted (as is here) is how manual cars and automated cars will interact. Are they on the same roads and highway systems? She is sure that at first there would be people that would get some joy out of veering toward automated cars in traffic simply to see them avoid the crash in different ways :wink:

Thinking about it I can’t help but think of Minority Report, where you have the commuter MagLev car that docks to your highrise living room,

This is more along the Mike and Maaike approach, and this is what I dream of for our commute.

and then other cars that seem more along the regular manual drivers




the photos definitely reminded me of the Toyota Pod concept from a few years back.

Also reminded of Alberto Villareal’s Fumu concept

from when he was at Umea

Long time no post…but I had to react to the google car.
I love it…the idea. Not really how it looks. And I agree they are missing out on some opportunities. No more sterring wheel opens up a whole lot of opportunities. The most obvious one is putting the door in front just like on the BMW ISETTA. I did a small friday-afternoon sketching exercice at work to showcase just that. Could be very benificial towards the elderly target group. The car could just drive underneath their bum…just like you slide a chair under granny’s ass when she needs to be seated a the table.

http://www.creax.com/2014/05/google-car-new-opportunities/

Many grts

It would be cooler as a 3 wheeler.

Isetta style front hatch would be very cool.

Realistically, I when this gets productized, it will be a feature on regular looking cars, not a car in itself. This is just a PR piece. Think of it like the Mercedes that can parallel park itself and has radar controlled adaptive cruise control and automatic breaking and lame change notification. This will just be the next step on the 20xx model.

Also, the infrastructure costs on building a duplicate road system would be crazy. They will likey drive on regular roads with mixed traffic so they won’t be legal until their real time adaptation of unpredictable moving objects around them is perfected.

Now, thinkin how to game the system. Imagine these cars automatically dynamically react to vehicles and other moving objects around them, and there is a traffic slow down. If hypothetically a fast moving Audi that is full manual approaches from the rear at a velocity much faster than the autonomous car, will it automatically pull over to the side of the road and get out of the way? If so, the manual commute just got more fun. :slight_smile:

Well, we’ve been hearing about autonomous cars for the last 3 - 4 years I think, I expected something else than a regular car without a steering wheel. If you are going around the city in a car without driving it, I’d rather use the time for something else than staring at the other cars. For a prototype that doesn’t go over 40 kph, they could have gone to something closer to the FUMU concept IDiot posted before. Public buses use that kind of layout without seat belts, for example.

I understand the reason of the cute look they gave it, but I think the render they showed was a better than the final result. The face was softer and the roof sensors were part of the design, not just an add-on. I personally would like something more serious than this, something that doesn’t look like a toy, but something I can trust. I guess over the next years will see some concepts from car manufacturers including this technology.

@Atohms

Cool idea! For the elderly, it’d be cool if the seat was also moving forward to the edge, the car would be easier to access, I think.

I think I have an idea of who would be behind the wheel of that Audi…

I see our disconnect. I have a very hard time equating styling with “innovative”. My comments were directed at the function of the car.

I do agree with you that their branding strategy of cute is horrible and should have a hard swing towards the trust you want.

The real disconnect is fitting this into the California six lane wide, one person per car, ego show.

Have it be a limousine service. Have Bentley or Maybach build the carriers. A 60 inch LED display should be able to fit in one end. Google’s strength would be predictive analysis of where the units had to be situated. The units would drive themselves to their next pickup. Sell partial ownership. Uber your car out at night to make money. Have a self cleaning unit drive drunk people home.

I just saw this on fastco design, interesting to see opinions from automotive designers

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3031342/top-car-designers-critique-googles-cute-self-driving-car

The function of the car is amazing, I think. I imagine something like car2go but where the car is picking you up or just going on its own to recharge batteries or park itself.

I want a self driving car (option) just to be clear, but had to bring these back:

So good.

Enjoy the last few years of human dominance. Only a matter of time before SkyNet gets a hold of this. Just kidding BTW.