14 DAY TRIAL // Google’s driverless cars have the potential of being the next big thing, but in its current development stage they’re only good on sunny days.
That’s because the autonomous cars can’t really drive through heavy rain, snow, parking garages or many other locations that we all visit each day. The MIT Technology Review reports that there are plenty of hurdles for the Google cars to overcome, despite all the miles that have been driven so far.
As you may know already, the cars have the ability to slow down and stop when traffic obstacles are detected, even if an individual jumps in front of the car. If a new stoplight appears overnight, however, you’re in trouble, because it takes a while for the system to be updated and for Google to know about the changes. The company claims, however, that the cars can identify unmapped stop signs, and if that fails, it will slow down because it will detect traffic.
Chris Urmson, director of the Google car team, admitts that there are some issues with the automobile, but he’s pretty optimistic about tackling the challenges in front of them, promising that improvements are going to happen more quickly than many people think.
While the first impression of the cars is that they’re going to be able to take people to any location they wish, that’s not exactly accurate. The cars need a lot of attention from owners ahead of a journey, since they need to know the car’s exact route, including driveways, to be able to deliver people to the location they want to get to.
Another difficult situation could pop up when encountering unmapped four-way stops, where the cars could slow down to an extreme in order to avoid making mistakes.
Robotics researcher at Carnegie Mellon, Michael Wagner, who studies the transition to autonomous driving, says that it’s quite important for Google to be open about what its cars can and cannot do, especially since this is early-stage technology.
The cars Google unveiled a few months back feature no steering wheel, accelerator, brake pedal, or even mirrors. Basically, it’s impossible for a human to take over the driving part. This is a frightening thought to many experienced drivers and many have asked Google to make it possible for humans to take over control of the cars on occasions.
It remains to be seen whether this will happen or not, but Google stands by what it said about the car’s safety and the proficiency of the system it set in place.