At the annual media conference at Allen & Company Sun Valley, USA, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Google, Eric Schmidt shared his thoughts on an ambitious project to create a company car-robots that can move without human intervention, according to TechCrunch. According to him, the audience sees only the tip of the iceberg, but because Google has not only been active in the development of automotive autopilot and holds his public trial. In addition, it is actively negotiating with virtually all the major auto companies and trying to deal with a very long list of problems, and not all of them relate to the technical side of things.
For example, even if we take a region, the United States, your first have to agree with each state to permit the use of robotic vehicles. The second problem – a severe limitation in movement speed. Current models, picked up that most closely to the commercial versions, are not able to work effectively on a regular rate for experienced drivers. Although Schmidt said that the company has a prototype that can compete on equal terms in the speed and even overtaking in the race car with a driver on board. However, still to be resolved a lot of technical problems, plus the main objective of the project – it’s not the speed of movement and security.
The Google seeks to create such a car, sitting in the driver which is sufficient to name or enter a destination address, then you can sit on the seat back and relax while the car is driven independently to the destination. To do this, even create a separate service, which Schmidt called a “Google Maps on steroids”
“Think of it as a kind of autopilot in an airplane, which, ultimately, it is still controlled by the man,” – said Schmidt.
To the question as to whether, and how quickly the new initiative will be able to absorb far from simple high-tech users, the vast majority, Schmidt replied that it depended “on the degree of intoxication.” For an innocent joke hides the harsh statistics, according to which the United States die every year 35 thousand people through the fault of a drunk driver. The sooner Google will be able to realize the project on a commercial level, the more lives could be saved, I am sure Schmidt:
The sooner we teach cars to drive for us, the more lives we can save. Car autopilot will be the main mode of transportation in our lifetime. It was all about Google cars.
