The technology has caught on so fast that the state of Nevada has passed the first laws allowing for automated cars!
This new technology sounds as if it is right out of a science fiction movie, and that’s because it’s not far off. Over the past several years Google engineers and scientists have been working tirelessly at Stanford Laboratories to develop a technology that will change the way we live in the upcoming decades: the Google Car.
Google is evidently taking its campaign to make its driverless cars legal on U.S. roads from state capitals to the nation’s capital. A Google robo-Prius was spotted last Tuesday roaming the streets of Washington, D.C., only a day after Nevada became the first state to legalize autonomous vehicles on the Silver State’s roads.U.S. News & World Report speculated that Google was in town to appeal to federal policymakers, and possibly take them for joyrides in one of the company’s self-driving Prius hybrids. The outlet also noted that Google has racked up a reported $5 million legislative lobbying tab in the first quarter of 2012 alone – more contributed to candidates’ coffers in the same time period than Apple, Facebook and Microsoft combined.
Getting lawmakers in the seat of a self-driving Prius has become Google’s M.O., according to Matthew Newton, editor of DriverlessCarHQ.com, a site dedicated to covering autonomous cars. “Google has been giving free rides to policymakers in California, Nevada and Florida,” Newton told Wired from his home base in Melbourne, Australia. “So it makes sense that they would do it in D.C.”
Now that Google has largely cleared the technical hurdles of getting self-driving cars on the road, the next step is gaining public acceptance – and winning over policymakers, Newton added. And due to its considerable lobbying war chest and cultural clout, Google apparently has no problem getting access to powerful politicians. Some, in fact, are seeking out Google rather than the other way around.
According to Politico, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) went for a spin in a Google self-driving Toyota Prius last month, as part of a GOP effort to reach out to Silicon Valley’s deep well of tech innovators and their deeper pockets. We couldn’t confirm whether other elected officials may have been taken for a ride by Google. (Our request for more information went unanswered as of press time.)
According to Driverless Car HQ, the Washington, D.C., Department of Motor Vehicles said in a tweet that Google didn’t inform the agency of its plans to operate the car in the nation’s capital. (As with most states, D.C. allows drivers to operate out-of-state vehicles.) And U.S News & World Report said that officials for the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology had no knowledge of Google’s plans.This car is completely driverless. It combines information from Goggle Street View with artificial intelligence software that communicates with a sensor on top of the car, which in turn speaks to the wheels and steering wheel to drive the car without any human interference. So far the car has clocked over 175,000 miles and had zero accidents.
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