While the promise of flying cars remains unfulfilled, Google today announced it has partnered with auto suppliers and will create 100 driverless cars rather than retro fitting existing vehicles.
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“We’re now exploring what fully self-driving vehicles would look like by building some prototypes,” said Chris Urmson, director of Google’s self-driving car project. “They’ll be designed to operate safely and autonomously without requiring human intervention.”
The very simple cars will have a top speed of 25 mph and will lack steering wheels, brake and gas pedals, Urmson said. “On the inside, we’ve designed for learning, not luxury, so we’re light on creature comforts, but we’ll have two seats, with seatbelts, a space for passengers’ belongings, buttons to start and stop, and a screen that shows the route—and that’s about it.”
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While not mentioned in the Google blog entry describing the vehicles, last summer, Google invested more than $250 million in car sharing company Uber, and earlier this year patented an advertising based taxi service that would offer free rides to shoppers.
