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Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

googleblog.blogspot.com

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Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#3

So far Google's self-driving cars have been designed to have the driver take over in certain situations. I wonder how that works without a steering wheel and pedals. Are the cars manually drivable at all?

Looks like they are.

"We’re planning to build about a hundred prototype vehicles, and later this summer, our safety drivers will start testing early versions of these vehicles that have manual controls."

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#5
post #3

So far Google's self-driving cars have been designed to have the driver take over in certain situations. I wonder how that works without a steering wheel and pedals. Are the cars manually drivable at all?

Looks like they are. "We’re planning to build about a hundred prototype vehicles, and later this summer, our safety drivers will start testing early versions of these vehicles that have manual controls."

That implies that the prototypes will have manual controls, but the production versions will not.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#6

So far Google's self-driving cars have been designed to have the driver take over in certain situations. I wonder how that works without a steering wheel and pedals. Are the cars manually drivable at all?

From a UI perspective if they rarely need manual control you can use a less ergonomic option. Such as a joystick which would be a pain for regular use but would take up less space and still provide plenty of control for situations like parking in a field for a concert and or a quick emergency override in case something goes wrong.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#7

So far Google's self-driving cars have been designed to have the driver take over in certain situations. I wonder how that works without a steering wheel and pedals. Are the cars manually drivable at all?

Yes, that's is a very interesting point. I would think that, long term, the only manual control a self driving car really needs is a "kill switch." How long will it be after self-driving tech goes mainstream until people simply don't know who to drive?

I can see my kids now, "I remember when I was a kid, my mom/dad actually had to control the automobile. Archaic!"

Not too long ago my friend's son asked me why my phone was attached to the wall. He had only ever known cordless phones. I image cars will go a similar route.

Re: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

#10
I think the biggest news was this sentence:

    If all goes well, we’d like to run a small pilot program here in California in the next couple of years.
This is the next step in their very slow but, apparently, very steady march towards real self-driving cars that anyone can buy.
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