Google's Self-Driving Car Demonstrated On Closed Course (VIDEO)

Google always seems to have a series of interesting projects operating under-the-radar. Back in October, AP reported on Google's experimentation with cars that drive themselves:

Google Inc. is road-testing cars that steer, stop and start without a human driver, the company says.

The goal is to "help prevent traffic accidents, free up people's time and reduce carbon emissions" through ride sharing and "the new 'highway trains of tomorrow,'" project leader Sebastian Thrun wrote Saturday on Google's corporate blog.

The cars are never unmanned, Thrun wrote. He said a backup driver is always behind the wheel to monitor the software.

The New York Times also took a look at Google's ambitious transportation efforts:

Autonomous cars are years from mass production, but technologists who have long dreamed of them believe that they can transform society as profoundly as the Internet has.

Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue.

At this week's TED conference, Search Engine Land caught video of one of Google's self-driving cars racing around a closed course. Take a look at their video to catch a brief glimpse of the future.

WATCH (via Search Engine Land):

Comments

[codycap]

04:40 PM on 03/06/2011

History has proved that improved technology always leads to a higher standard of living. Somehow or other the problem of lost jobs have always been solved.

Technology does not kill jobs, bad politics does.

[wwwTHENOIREFFECTcom]

11:10 PM on 03/05/2011

If all cars become Satellite guided it's a possibility. Google is far ahead of other technological companies and have been slowly getting their hands in varying markets. What can't Google Do?

[MikeyJaii]

01:27 AM on 03/05/2011

Their vehicles are Made in China, don't support it.

[StansDad]

01:37 PM on 03/05/2011

U thought the Prius was built entirely in Japan

[Roses]

02:22 PM on 03/05/2011

Sadly, alot of 'our' vehicles are made in China. Most of our 'stuff' is 'made' or assembled in China or parts come from other countries. If being made entirely in America is your barometer you will not own much.

[sculptor]

12:45 AM on 03/05/2011

These cars will be the saviors of the Baby Boomers because they will be the only viable transportation option available after the safety net for seniors is dismantled by the GOP.

[kamakiri001]

10:16 PM on 03/04/2011

Wow!.....this would be a drunk driver's dream come true....

You could party at the clubs 'til 4:00 a.m. and program the robot chauffeur to take you back home after you're done finished tipping back several Long Island Teas!

[wilray]

04:50 PM on 03/05/2011

That's what I was thinking. I was thinking this could be the greatest invention since the automobile. Just think, if you could make your car be the designated driver, you could drink and drive. You could work on those business reports, watch TV, text message, eat dinner, make out with a hottie in the back seat. Or you could simply take a nap, which enough people seem to be doing already.

http://www.americanindian.net/sleepstats.html

[AMCD]

01:27 PM on 03/07/2011

I was just talking to my wife the other day about how much self driving cars could save us.
Insurance would go down. Time commuting in your car could be spent doing other things.
Self driving car picks up children from school. Takes elderly and handicapped to store, dr appointments. No more drunk drivers (again, affecting insurance costs).

[NeverUndecided]

06:49 PM on 03/04/2011

There is no possible real, broad market for this. One of Google's many "ventures" which amount to handing a pile of money to some tech-head to play with. A total waste.

[sculptor]

12:50 AM on 03/05/2011

Did you consider the fact that the average age of our population is increasing with time? Admittedly these cars will be very expensive when first introduced but given Moore's Law the price of the technology involved will rapidly drop.

[MAJK]

10:29 AM on 03/05/2011

Sometimes, innovation IS the market.

[JScott]

02:13 PM on 03/04/2011

Should it become workable they still should not allow drivers to yak away and text on their cellphone as that Metrolink accident in Chatsworth still proves, you can't multitask with something like this, you still need a cars undivided attention.

[sviolette]

04:40 PM on 03/05/2011

Cell phones will be a thing of the past when these cars are the norm.

[AndyWright68]

01:09 PM on 03/04/2011

A Prius instead of a Tesla? Is Google hurting?

Add this to high torque electric cars and people will be flying at 100+ miles an hour. No need for high speed rail built with stolen money.. And no more abusing the people with this DUI nonsense.

[beasteben]

10:36 AM on 03/04/2011

KIT!

[AndyWright68]

02:01 AM on 03/04/2011

Forget the money pits of high speed rail. This is the future. And it does not require money stolen from the people

[lightningbolt]

08:36 AM on 03/04/2011

We can have both.  High speed rail is not a money pit.  Every other advanced nation is doing it.  The U.S. is far behind.

[AndyWright68]

12:41 PM on 03/04/2011

Once this technology comes available why would you want to force people to pay for rail when you can go a hundred miles an hour in your car while you sleep? Plus cars are still cheaper per traveled mile than the best high speed train.

[AndyWright68]

07:48 AM on 03/05/2011

Why would we need cops? The cars will be going 100 and their computers will avoid each other. The only thing cops will do is disrupt the flow and annoy everyone. They will have to find other avenues of stealing people's money.

Many roads are being privatized as they all should. And have you seen some of those roads?! They are amazing. Nice smooth blacktop with nearly no road noise from your tires and bright wide lines and signs. You should drive one sometime and compare them to these loud pothole infested and faded lined government decaying embarrassments.

There is no need to steal people's money for roads or cars or trains when we will be more than willing to pay for what we need. And what wee need are safer cars and better roads. You don't have to point guns at us for that.

[Visionary Excellence]

10:52 AM on 03/04/2011

This is part of the future for ground based transportation. If this technology was required for all cars it would save trillions of dollars based on the number of autodeaths every year do to drunk, drowsy distracted driving.

rail also makes sense. one reason that humans group together and form cities, and nation states is economy of scale. buying in bulk. etc. it saves energy and resources. building roads also has a high cost. hopefully we will have mass produced cheap personal flight vehicles soon. If the US industry wont step up, perhaps Indonesia will lead the way (due to their island geography).

[sculptor]

01:17 AM on 03/05/2011

I've got to call you on the "save trillions of dollars" you mention above. Fisrt, only about 30,000 to 40,000 thousand die each year from traffic deaths. So even if all of these died on long trips it would mean each live saved would have to be worth $25,000,000 for the total to amount to a trillion dollars....

[Visionary Excellence]

10:53 AM on 03/04/2011

you get what you pay for

[J0E1]

11:59 AM on 03/04/2011

SPAM

[Rubyfoo]

01:28 AM on 03/04/2011

First get Gmail right, then worry about cars.

[Undead]

02:13 AM on 03/04/2011

"Gracious applause"

[lightningbolt]

08:37 AM on 03/04/2011

I've never had any problems with gmail.

[SteveDenver]

12:21 AM on 03/04/2011

If this car is anything like Gmail, once there are a few million on the road, they will all crash at the same time.

[Visionary Excellence]

10:56 AM on 03/04/2011

there are triple redundancy GPS systems. so aside from the cars loacal sensors there are outside reference points that can be incorporated into a navigation system. critical control systems typically have redundancy - so a crash would have to be an a+b+c failure. perhaps an regional automated traffic grid could crash but each car would have its own autopilot.

[JScott]

02:15 PM on 03/04/2011

regional automated traffic grid-so apparently it's ok for the government to fund this but not high speed rail.....typical an indirect subsidy to the car companies.

[MAJK]

10:31 AM on 03/05/2011

.02 % of people were affected by Gmail outage... but how many human errors cause crashes today? I'd guess awhole lot more than the .02% that were affected by gmails outage.

[Axekick]

12:08 AM on 03/04/2011

Cool, will the police mail the reckless driving and speeding tickets directly to Google then?

[Visionary Excellence]

10:58 AM on 03/04/2011

most reckless and bad driving would be done by humans (teens texting, or drunk distracted drowsy drivers etc). every two years the number of US autodeaths equals the amount of Americans killed in the viet nam war.

[J0E1]

12:00 PM on 03/04/2011

If the car knew the speed limit there wouldn't be any speeding tickets.  Police will not be happy with this lost revenue. 

[Axekick]

09:59 PM on 03/04/2011

Which is why it will never come to fruition, at least not become mainstream. It would eliminate too much revenue for the states.

[Boodieugwumba]

12:03 AM on 03/04/2011

This is all nice and good. Question is, how many more jobs will be lost to robots? How many more poor people will lose their paychecks to the ever deepening pockets of the rich? Think about it http://ohaneze.blogspot.com/2010/10/that-google-robo-car.html

[bobbysheldon]

02:24 AM on 03/04/2011

Holy crap that may have been the single most horrible thing I've ever read.

If the premise behind your argument being that we as a country should discourage or hide from technological advancement in some misguided attempt to "save jobs" is truly what you believe, then I think you should "save" the jobs of the scribes you put out of work and stop posting your thoughts to the internet.

Distribute your comments by hand, otherwise you're putting these people out of work! Before you came along with your computers and internets we had newspaper boys standing on street corners selling the thoughts and insight of a few. Now because of your recklessness with technology, newspapers are in decline. Paperboys are out of work, fewer trees are cut down in order to produce the paper...entire industries are crumbling because of you.

Please, Boodieugwumba, for the sake of these poor working people I urge you to never post another comment to a blog or other website ever again.

[golema]

09:15 AM on 03/04/2011

well said...

[Robert SF]

02:04 PM on 03/04/2011

Come on, that's a little harsh. While we cannot roll back technology, nor should we, there is still the problem of rising unemployment caused by technology. We're seeing it happen right now, and it's a world-wide phenomenon. Even China has lost jobs as its factories have become more automated.

[Robert SF]

01:57 PM on 03/04/2011

It is true that technology is bringing about the end of work as a human activity. It has been happening for a long, long time -- since the discovery of the lever -- but has accelerated in the past 30 years.

Until recently, the unemployment caused by technology was compensated by the employment created by increased demand. To make and maintain a car takes less human effort than to raise and feed a horse; however, there were soon many more cars than there had ever been horses, so the net result was more jobs.

The problem is that, as technology advances, you need a greater and greater increase in demand to re-employ the same number of people. At some point, demand can approach infinity without creating any jobs at all. For example, no amount of telephone sales will bring back the job of the PBX operator.

And it's about to get particularly bad. Consider just three technologies that will undoubtedly become widespread within a decade.

1.- IBM's Watson. You don't have to be Jeopardy-smart to answer customer questions over a phone. Watson will end call centers as we know them.

2.- Self-checkout. American retail will go 80% self-checkout within the decade, putting 3 million more people out of work.

3.- Driverless auto. Forget taxis. It will kill the trucking industry.

Martin Ford and Marshall Brain independently write about how technology is disemploying us while leading to higher economic inequality. We can't stop the advance of technology, so they have different

[GreenEyedGuru]

06:34 PM on 03/04/2011

Self checkout -- I doubt it, the amount of shrinkage through the self checkout lines has got to be huge.