Friday, 31 October 2014

Self-Driving Automobiles Will Be Standard By 2020, Says Former General Motors Exec

By Cornelius Nunev


Larry Burns, former R&D chief of GM, is excited about driverless automobiles. He believes that they will fill entire United States fleets by 2020. By 2015, however, customers should get a good look at the technology in readily accessible models.

No more crashes from distracted driving

The emissions in urban cities will decrease quite a bit with driverless vehicles because there will be fewer automobiles on the road. People will not get distracted, which will mean fewer crashes on the road. Distracted driving will become obsolete; people will be able to do whatever they want in the car, including taking care of business and phone calls.

Attention given to Google

Radar and video cameras are put to the driverless vehicles in order to detect road hazards or stop signs. They position the automobile on the road very well. Google has gotten a ton of attention with its test drive of driverless automobiles. It has used Prius and Audi TT versions to test drive the system on public roads. In fact, Google has already test driven the program for thousands of miles.

Due to a separate human driver, there was one accident while the driverless system was active. Drivers can take over the system in the car at any point.

Past driverless automobiles

The "Boss," or a self-driving Chevrolet Tahoe, was partly introduced in 2007 by General Motors. The car was entered into a 55 mile race supported by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). The self-driving system won the race with its cameras and radars keeping it on the road, according to Automotive News.

Trying the system out

By 2015, most consumer vehicles will have some of the necessary benefits needed for a self-driving system, although Burns states they won't be accessible fully until 2020. Driverless systems will work with a ton of different things to promote roadway safety. They will have collision avoidance, lane-keeping technology and adaptive cruise control.

What about insurance?

It will be harder to figure out who is at fault in accidents with the new technology. That means a massive stumbling block for the driverless cars will be insurance companies.

Find out more about self-driving at Google




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