So, after some speculation in the media about Google’s Driverless intentions in Washington D.C. after they were spotted there, it turns out that the politicians they were targeting were those of the city council, not Congress.

*UPDATE Reader Paul Godsmark sends us a link to this video:

The Washington Post has it:

Marveling over what they billed as the potential future for getting around town, D.C. Council members Mary Cheh and Tommy Wells took a quick spin Thursday in Google’s new self-driving car.

Cheh (D-Ward 3), chairwoman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Works and Transportation, and Wells (D-Ward 6) rode about 10 blocks in the self-driving Toyota Prius following a briefing with Google officials at the company’s Washington office on New York Avenue NW.

Cheh certainly was drinking the Kool-Aid, delivering a quote straight from the Google playbook:

 “It would enable people who are not able to drive, people who are blind or disabled, it would enable them to drive a car,” Cheh said after the trip. “It would also have an extraordinary impact on parking, and traffic itself, because cars are idle about 90 percent of the time…so cars could be used by more than one person. You could get out of your car and tell it to go find a parking space.”

It seems that a free ride for 5 minutes is all that is needed to convince most politicians. Then again, the photo opps in this thing are special for politicians looking to get their face in the media.

Amusingly,

 When reporters arrived outside of Google’s office, company officials were surprised to see them. Apparently, according to Google staffers, the company wasn’t aware the event was going to be filmed by the media. They declined on-camera interviews and instructed reporters not to film the inside of the car, citing confidential technology.

Parking lots.

They’re a necessary but ugly blight on the landscape of many fine cities and we arguably have far more than we’ll ever need.

For example: according to the New York Times, Houston has 30 car spots per resident.

What happens when we suddenly no longer need to park our cars?

Slate’s talking about this today.

Every metropolitan area in the United States contains many, many more parking spaces than automobiles. When you’re at work, the space allocated for your vehicle at home sits there empty. When you’re at home, the space allocated for your vehicle at the office sits empty. Malls build parking to accommodate demand during peak hours, and the spaces mostly sit empty off-peak. But if the cars could drive around without a human pilot, there’d be no need for such lavish supplies of vehicle storage. In principle, a metro area could get by with fewer than one parking space per car since even at minimum-demand times a nonzero quantity of vehicles would be in use. That’s probably extreme, but right now depending on how you count we have somewhere between three and eight spaces per car. If the cars don’t need to sit idly waiting for you until you want to leave (imagine a world of cheap, ubiquitous taxis) that number is going to become totally ridiculous. After exploding for about 60 years, the torrent of parking construction is going to halt very suddenly and then start shifting into reverse. That should even make some rail lines more useful.

Brad Templeton, who has a fantastic RoboCar section on his site, has these thoughts:

Robocars should be able to outdo even the best parking valet when it comes to parking densely in a lot. This is not just because of their ability to do details moves in close quarters, it’s because they can coordinate. For example, if rearranging a valet lot requires moving every single car, that’s something the robocars can all do at once, and an almost impossible task for human valets.

Of course, robocar lots will try to organize so that cars that may be needed soon can get out more easily, and cars with known (and later) need times will be more blocked, but in truth no car will be very blocked, because of the robocars ability to move in concert.

The combination of smaller cars and super-valet parking should allow typical parking lots to hold several times more vehicles than they can today.

If we ever need to build more parking lots, lots designed for robocars could be even denser. For example, they could have sections with very low ceilings — because humans almost never go in there. A parking structure could thus have twice as many storeys.

Aside from the above, I find myself disagreeing with most of Brad’s other thoughts on parking but he’s got just as much chance at being right. For example, he posits that double-parking might be the way of the future:

Robocars might not only park blocking driveways. At low-traffic times (which are exactly the times that the most parking is needed) robocars could double-park or even triple park on the streets. One could imagine a street with 6 lanes at rush hour that, during the night or middle of the day is reduced to just 2 lanes with 4 lanes of parking. Or even to a single one-way lane. This works well because cars have to be somewhere. They either will be moving in the driving lanes or waiting in the waiting lanes. The total amount of space remains similar (parked cars are of course denser on the ground than moving ones.)

Robocar double parking doesn’t mean a problem for the cars on the curb lane, even if the cars are quadruple parked. Of course, cars would be encouraged to try to organize themselves so that cars needed soonest are on the outside, and long-wait cars are on the inside, but that just reduces the amount of moving.

That’s because robocars could, when double-parked on a block of moderate length, always leave one “gap” in the line of cars. This gap could be in the middle, or it could be a more natural gap at one of the ends. If there’s a frequently used driveway, there will already be a gap.

I’m not sure I see this happening though. As discussed above, we’re going to be up to our eyeballs in redundant parking lots so you’d think they would be the first port of call. Not only this but Driverless Cars will need to charge themselves somehow and the double parking solution doesn’t fit that vision.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this -

Matthew.

The main reason we are excited about driverless cars is their potential to reduce collisions by over 95%, save billions of dollars in economic damage and reduce the global road toll by almost a million people per year. Unfortunately, any new technology introduced into society on a large scale is going to have unintended side effects. In recognition of this, Mat posted on a few of the potential ways driverless cars could cause fatalities.

In response to that post, commenter jcp411 noted that a typical driverless car will be packed with all sorts of RADAR, cameras and other sensors to monitor all 360 degrees of its environment. In fact, a driverless car with a big hard drive could record every trip it ever takes. Most likely, the safest most advanced driverless cars will be able to obey complex road laws whilst gauging the velocity, mass and likely behaviour of other objects within detection range. This means that driverless cars will be able to witness vehicle crashes (whether involved or not), manned vehicles breaking road rules (e.g. speeding, red lights) or even violent crimes (e.g. roadrage, highway robbery). Driverless cars could multi-task as a valuable tool for insurance companies and police.

This ability to record everything got us thinking… will driverless cars will have the same effect as law enforcement vehicles? In the same way that when when a driver sees highway patrol in the rear view mirror they slow down… every time a driver sees a driverless car they will modify their behaviour to drive in a less risky fashion – or risk a ticket. Even if only 5 or 10% of cars had driverless capabilities, that would be enough of a critical mass of sensory data for most human drivers to feel as though they were being recorded.

The upside is that better (human) driving behaviour may be coming sooner that we think. The downside is there could be a massive increase in the number of cameras recording whenever we are in public. (I’m guessing most Libertarians won’t like this). Even I find the possibility a bit disturbing. I imagine most societies will make pragmatic use of this development (like we have for mobile phone cameras). On the other hand, I imagine Italy some jurisdictions with Ferrari loving politicians will ban the collection of criminal evidence from driverless car sensors.

We live in interesting times.

After my tongue-in-cheek post yesterday about Autonomous Vehicle deaths, there was a small discussion on our Facebook wall about more serious causes.

Having read hundreds of articles going into the pros and cons of Driverless Cars while scrummaging around for content for this blog, I can say that I’ve definitely seen it all when it comes to wild speculation about how these things are going to cause accidents.

So, here it is – realistic visions of what may potentially cause accidents when Driverless Cars are on the road. Many of them are scenarios faced by cars already.

1. Distraction Of Other Road Users. Yesterday’s post was light-hearted but we have no doubt that many accidents will be caused by the head-turning nature of Driverless Cars. I remember one incident near my house where there was a fatal accident. 20 minutes later, an even worse accident occurred (four additional people lost their lives) because people were rubber-necking while driving past.

2. Sensor Confusion. This is probably the most common scenario that people present. Either it’s the sun glaring directly into the sensors and putting them off, or the vehicle being unable to tell where the road is because of heavy amounts of snow and ice.

3. Computer Crash. We’ve all seen computers crash. Imagine what it’d be like if the computer on board an Autonomous Car suddenly failed while travelling at 70 miles an hour?  We see this scenario as less likely than most simply because manufacturers are going to be fully aware of this potential problem and will build in a few redundancies, I’d suspect.

4. Environmental Hazard. One can imagine various road conditions which might cause a car to lose control. The first that springs to my mind is black ice. Other accidents may be completely unavoidable even with an amazing reaction time, such as those caused by falling rocks or by objects falling out of trucks.

5. Computer Error. This could come in many guises. Unfortunately, some of the flaws in the programming will only come to light once an accident has occurrd.

6. Collision With Non Vehicle Road Users. Pedestrians may step out in front of a car before it has opportunity to swerve. Cyclists might swerve suddenly, straight into the path of an oncoming vehicle.

7. Hacking/Hijacking. More likely in a Hollywood movie than in real life, it’s still a distinct possibility that someone may try to hijack a car and send it careening into a concrete wall.

8. Terrorism. Ugh, I hate that word. It comes into everything. Yet Driverless Car Bombs will be much easier to recruit because no-one’s life would need sacrificing.

That’s the best I can come up with for now.

Have you got any better thoughts? I’d love to hear them -

Matthew.

“Hey, is that a Driverless Car? Wow, look honey! That guy’s not using his – ”

SMASH.

Many of you may not be aware that on May 12, the New England Motor Press Association in conjunction with MIT held a conference which discussed Driverless Cars.

The day long conference heard many opinions on automotive technology with a special focus on autonomous vehicle technology.

I have found two great articles summing it up: a positive one from EE Times, and a more negative one from MSN Autos, running through some of the humps that still need overcoming.

Interesting quotes:

One of the highlights of the SAE meeting was a presentation by Anthony Levandowski, business lead for Google’s Self-Driving Car project. He noted that today “driving is the distraction” for many drivers who engage in other tasks while at the wheel. As part of the company’s mission to foster innovation and meet challenges that will have a high, positive impact on society, developing technology for self-driving cars can reduce road fatalities and the more than 90% of collisions caused by human error. Google looks to furnish building blocks of such technology for industry.

Levandowski “drives” the Google vehicle to work about 60 miles one way. When he “boots up” the car, a digital world model, based on Google mapping, provides the car’s location within ±5 cm, including “knowledge” of lanes, crosswalks, etc. Onboard sensors detect surrounding vehicles and objects for processing the traffic situation to determine a path to follow. He admits that construction zones challenge the mapping-based architecture because they can have “daily” changes to painted markings and safety-cone placement.

He says his commute is three quarters in the auto mode. He first started driving completely autonomously, but “certain situations need work,” and now highway driving is mostly on auto. He uses his “downtime” in the car not to text but to plan out his day, and feels less stressed when arriving at work.

Jonathan How, of MIT, isn’t quite convinced:

 He has concerns about its map-based guidance in a complex and dynamic road environment, such as Boston’s notorious street scene, with the need to handle “normal and off-normal behavior of other vehicles and pedestrians for classification and intent recognition.

And from Continental, who are developing a semi-autonomous system and are set to have the second vehicle registered in Nevada:

Continental’s Director of Engineering Systems & Technology, Christian Schumacher, also sees 360° predictive safety systems in all vehicle types around the year 2020. These will first enable low-speed systems, for semi-automated driving, such as “traffic jam assist.”

Thanks to reader Gabriel for sending across the EE Times link.

Via the awesome Richard Bishop (@ThinkingCarsH3B):

The Nevada DMV has posted up some images of the license plate for the Google Car.

This marks an incredible stepping stone for Driverless Car technology. Google now has the first officially licensed vehicle on the roads. The significance of this cannot be understated.

“I felt using the infinity symbol was the best way to represent the ‘car of the future.’” Department Director Bruce Breslow said. “The unique red plate will be easily recognized by the public and law enforcement and will be used only for licensed autonomous test vehicles. When there comes a time that vehicle manufactures market autonomous vehicles to the public, that infinity symbol will appear on a green license plate.”

Click To Enlarge

We’ve had a fair amount of fun up to this point sharing some of our favorite Driverless Cars from around the world. Check out some other posts of ours to see past concept vehicles.

Today we present to you many that you may have missed – and some very cool ideas to boot.

The Transport as a Service model (TaaS) will mean that Driverless Car companies of the future will seek differentiation in order to win clients just as they do today. Some will compete on price, and we can easily imagine that they will be hyper-efficient, super-aerodynamic, light and tiny.

Others will push into the luxury space and be like rolling lounges, kitted out with luxurious leather and wood-grain fittings. It’s these kinds of imaginings which have gone into the images below. Hat Tip to Eco Friend for helping us to discover many of these:

Click Any Image To See The Full Size.

The ATNMBL - From Mike and Maaike  :

The seats facing outside would make me quick sick. I doubt I’d be the only one! A stylish vision, however.

Hat Tip To A Distinctive World

Name Unknown – From Forbes:

A touch more functional.

The Driverless Taxi By Peter Kubik

Hat Tip : Environment Team

The Guardian by John Bukasa of Casser Design

Complete lack of privacy, but it would suit sporting parades and others who want to be seen.

Hat Tip: Yanko Design

The Zagato

Not to be confused with the real world Zagato.

The iMove by Liviu Tudoran

What it would be like if Apple were to release a car:

Hat Tip : Car Guide Blog

The Autonomi

EV 2020 by Robin Long

Jaguar Mark XXI by Chris Pollard

This one pushes the boundaries of the imagination, however we can definitely see car-makers moving to develop vehicles that have efficiency as priority #1, #2 and #3. Given that form won’t be an issue any more, cars will most likely be sleek and could well be covered in solar panels.

Hat Tip : Car Body Design

One of the more profitable implementations of Driverless Cars in the short term is in the military space.

Most people are unaware that the initial impetus that sparked today’s push towards Driverless Cars comes directly from the U.S. military’s research arm, DARPA. DARPA ran several successful challenges to encourage scientific teams to develop autonomous vehicle technology.

Building on this is Torc Robotics, who have announced a vehicle that will conduct pre-landing groundwork for Air Force units.

To quote:

TORC Robotics recently demonstrated an autonomous vehicle for Air Force Research Labs (AFRL) capable of performing expedient runway surveys, including taking soil hardness measurements, providing terrain data and reporting hazards to flight.

Survey teams currently carry all of the necessary equipment along open runway areas. This labor-intensive process leaves them vulnerable to the many inherent risks of extended exposure times with limited situational awareness. The semi-autonomous process of surveying expedient runways with RAZTEK robotic systems offers a much faster, safer, more accurate means to gather the necessary data for assessing potential assault-zone landing strips.

Ford, via Wired.com

My opinions on Ford are well known but you have to give them credit – in terms of actually putting rubber on the road they are definitely the industry leaders in bringing Driver Assist to the humble masses.

Wired has a recent article going into detail on the features of the new Ford Fusion 2013.

Among the technologies on board: Driver Alert, which uses a camera pointed at the road to detect patterns of motion that are consistent with drowsy driving. If it senses that you’re falling asleep, it’ll trigger a “series of alerts” including a coffee cup icon on the dash, all intended to get you to pull over and take a break. Unfortunately, no actual coffee is dispensed, and it also won’t let your boss know you’re going to be late for work because you stopped for a nap.