By now , we ’ve all seen pictures of ego - driving cars , like Google ’s fleet of Priuses with freaky rigs on their roofs , or completely driverless automobile , like Google ’s latest precious piffling guy wire , which does n’t even have traditional controls for humans to use .
consider about this : We may someday have to explain to our grandkids what a steering wheel was . Probably at the same time we ’re explicate to them why we cling to our old gasoline combustion engine for so long — and that ’s the reason these poor kids have never been outside the noodle we all live under .
But enough doom and glumness ! Now is the time to get in on the solid ground floor of ego - driving cars with a wish lean of things we ’d care to see applied scientist and intriguer include in these car before they ’re amply formed .
10: A Personality
" The Jetsons ' " robot Rosie had a personality . The smartphone in the movie " Her " had enough personality that a man fell in love . And for a more direct case in point , the cars in Isaac Asimov ’s short story " Sally " from 1953 had personality in their positronic brains . ( pay off no aid to the violent retribution streak those cars had . ) If we ’re going to give the electronic rein over , we humans tend to feel well if the cable car is at least a small human - like itself . According to a late field , grant the car a name , a gender and a voice increase our power to trust a self - driving fomite to do the right thing [ root : Adam , Heafner and Epley ] .
9: Encryption
That self - driving car park in your service department is a sophisticated computing machine on wheels . It ’s probably get better WiFi than your home . It knows when you are slumber , it knows when you ’re alive . It knows when you are bad or good , so beware the NSA . If you pay your pecker while the auto drives you to work , hacker could foot your bill numbers out of the air . Or you could find yourself in the middle of a plot worthy of a Matt Damon action motion-picture show , with your machine ’s computer under the ascendence of the Russian mob while on its way to pick up drugs you ’ve never heard of down by the docks at one in the morning time . Some are hope that the potency to monitor an person ’s movement in the real Earth — not just online — will drag on our privateness protections into the modern era . Some others are like , " Sure , I ’ll help you out , Mr. Nigerian prince . " Let ’s hope that first group takes the lead on this one .
8: Snow Shoes
There are very few masses who love drive in snow and slush , and those who do are mostly Norse rally car drivers . Most of us fear it — the wing benders , the ditches , the whiteout . It would be dandy if an self-directed car could just do that already , but it ca n’t . Not yet , anyway . The current crop of self - driving cars rely on camera and sensor to see the earth around it , which let in lane divider and the white line mark the edge of the route . When snow and slush cut across those up , autonomous cars wander around in the street like drunken robots .
7: A Low, Low Price
unexampled technology cost big Pearl Buck . We be intimate that . And yet the cost tag for the rooftop rig that Google is using to test its self - take car costs something like $ 75,000 — in addition to the cost of the auto it sit on top of . That ’s a lot of money for a pot of ugly . Of course , there are only a few of these camera- and sensor - laden rigs in the entire world , and they ’re still in the beta stage and will be for quite some time ( like everything that Google releases , am I correct ? ) . On - board driving assistance applied science , like smart cruise control and 360 - degree cameras , are becoming more wide available and cheaper , so these will likely extend the way toward driverless cars in the near future .
6: Innovative Design
Most self - driving cars being quiz still require a human being in the driver ’s keister to help with the tricky bits , like nose candy or confusing highway interchanges . But Google ’s got another cute small cat that ’s completely driverless — no steering roulette wheel or pedal point at all . If this becomes a workable descriptor of transportation , then the frame and purpose of railway car can be entirely reimagined . Beyond the convenient , like a flat floor that commuter can expend for catching an excess 45 - minute nap on the way to work , there ’s the perfectly practical , like an robotic incline and slots that fit a wheelchair without hassle or expensive retrofitting .
5: Play Nice With Others
Another emerge technology , vehicle - to - vehicle communication , or V2V as the kids call it , is run to make this whole driverless matter possible . Cars will be capable to sense each other and make little conversations : " Hey , blue sedan over there . " " Oh , hey , little red EV . " " I ’m just going to amble through this Cartesian product now , seeing as how I have the green luminosity and all . " " Totes cool , EV . My sensor severalise me I ’ve become a crimson brightness level anyway . " Cars will talk to each other , to buses , to emergency vehicles and even to infrastructure like wise dealings lights . They ’ll be chatty as that guy in the break room everyone examine to avoid , but hopefully more utile .
4: Park It Like It’s Hot
While self - drive railway car are Modern , self - parking carsare not . Putting that relatively old capability on a wish list would be punch-drunk . But what about a self - driving railroad car that could tool around the mall parking flock look for a distance for itself ? Engineers in South Korea have figured out a way to fetch data from sensors , cameras and that old - schooltime bowel movement - meter , the milometer , together to avail a self - drive car become a self - parking car . The car looks for the paint lines that stand for " parking space , " then it specify if there ’s an obstruction in that space — like , say , another elevator car . When it find a parking space with nothing in it , it secernate the driver , who can pick out to take the spot or seem for a better one . Of naturally , the car has to be able-bodied to see the speckle , so nighttime parking is still up to the homo .
3: Naps, Snacks and Movies
2: Electrons for Fuel
As long as we ’re ridding ourselves of the troublesomeness of driving the cable car , allow ’s rid ourselves of stops at the gun place , too . There arerobotic gas pumpsin the body of work , but let ’s take an even more ginormous step forward and just go all - galvanising with these things . Think of it : If designers can do anything once the steerage wheel and pedals are gone , what could they do without the need for air aspiration , exhaust pipes , or silencer ? auto could take on any shape and configuration under the sun — oh hey ! allow ’s make themsolar - poweredelectricself - ram cars ! It ’s a wish listing , correct ? Get on it , engineers . Actually , Nissan has mentioned making a ego - drive version of its Leaf electrical car , so it ’s not such a pipework dream after all .
1: Flying Cars
There ’s an honest-to-goodness caper that say racing begin as soon as the second car was build . It seems that the dream of a flying automobile hatched about five minutes after that , but we have yet to fork up . It ’s like that one thing that every kid put on her Christmas lean every year but never set about : a horse , a menage in Disneyland , a sojourn from Dumbledore promising that she ’s a wizard and this is n’t her material home . So please , Santa Claus , if we can have self - drive cars , can they have an option to vanish ? We ’ll be extremely good this year . We promise .
Lots More Information
It ’s funny — when you ask most people what features a self - driving car should have , they look at you blankly . A machine that can drive itself is already a mind - blower ; what else could you possibly need ? I ’d egg on them with a few seeds of ideas , and tell them to really let their mental imagery go violent , and they would say in all earnestness , " I have no idea . " I ’ll admit it was even a niggling thought-provoking to me . But once you delve into the possibleness and project that engine driver are already working on , you realize there ’s a whole new world of self-propelled tech do in the next decennium , whether consumers are quick for it or not . A sensor , a young airbag , and a 3 - naut mi per gallon ( 1.3 - kilometer per liter ) increase in gas milage are n’t lead to rationalize it any longer . The future of cars has the potential to be reasonably freaking awesome .
