“The project is about changing the world for people who are not well-served by transportation today,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said at the inaugural Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Google today announced its own design for self-driving cars, which will drive people around without a steering wheel or pedals. What’s left are lots of sensors, and a transplant of the self-driving software system Google has built to use on the Toyota Priuses and Lexus SUVs it has trained to drive on highways and city streets over the past five years. Google's overarching goal with the self-driving car program has been to develop vehicles that are safer than the ones driven by humans. However this new version, which was announced by Brin at the Recode conference, is a new design that fits two people, and is driven entirely by computer using a variety of on-board computers and sensors. Google says the program is currently in a prototype phase, but that it plans to build around 100 early versions of the vehicles for testing this summer.
– Google has turned Toyotas and Lexus SUVs into self-driving vehicles, but its latest car takes the driverless project to the next level. The company built the bug-like contraption from the ground up, and it has no steering wheel, gas pedal, or—perhaps most worryingly for some—brakes (though there is an "e-stop button," the New York Times notes). But the car's also got improved sensors that allow it to "see" to a distance of two football fields, and Google says it's essentially free from blind spots. Recode dubs it "a gondola with wheels," while the Verge sees it as some kind of Fiat-Playmobil hybrid. The two-seater "is about changing the world for people who are not well-served by transportation today," says Google co-founder Sergey Brin. As for riding in it, John Markoff describes the experience in the New York Times as "a cross between riding in my office elevator … and memories of riding in the Disneyland Tomorrowland people mover as a child." Google argues that self-driving cars, with reaction speeds faster than humans', could reduce driving deaths by some 90%, the Verge reports. The benefits, per Google's blog: "Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History."