The topic I will be talking to you today about is the Driverless car. It is a very intriguing thought to think that one can be on a laptop while letting a car drive itself to your destination. But before I talk more on the driverless car we need to understand the background of the automobile. Carl Benz created the first gas powered automobile in 1879 (Benz Patent). This man’s name is known today by the name of Mercedes Benz. The car had a one cylinder 2 stroke engine. It had a whopping 0.75 hp (Benz Patent). Talk about speed. Next came what most car enthusiast believe was the first modern automobile. Wilhelm Maybach developed what is known as the first modern car (First Modern). It was built in 1900. It was a 4 cylinder 35 horsepower engine …show more content…
The driverless car is an extraordinary advancement in the automotive industry. It could help give people more free time to spend with family or other things. But it can also be hard to think that your lives are on the line. That a big deal, if one thing go bad in the automobile there is a good chance you could die. Google is projected to release their driverless car in 2018 (Hall). Google’s autonomous car can drive in a straight line and park but doesn’t obey the law (Hall). It still can’t understand traffic sign or pedestrian or drive in bad weather conditions (Hall). So far some automobile companies have incorporated automatic braking and other safety options. A good thing about the autonomous car is it could allow people with impaired vision or disable people to get around in an automobile (Hall). It is proven that 90% of all accidents are caused by driver error (Hall). The companies are thinking if they could make the car safe it could avoid accident much better than a human. The more of these driverless cars on the road the less dangerous the road will be (Hall). But what would happen to all the DMV places (Walton)? Would you still need a license (Walton)? What would happen to all the towing companies for car wrecks? How would insurance work with a autonomous car? Will the future driverless cars run on electricity? It would be hard for car enthusiast to …show more content…
By 2016 Google is planning to test their autonomous vehicle in rain and snow (Hars). By 2017 Google’s autonomous vehicle should be able to drive on snow and on pre- routed journeys (Hars). By 2017 companies like Bosch, Continental, Valeo, and others will be introducing their autonomous vehicle (Hars). Do you understand now? The autonomous vehicle Is coming our way quickly and will be here before we know it. By 2019, the autonomous vehicle will be used in 50 cities worldwide (Hars). They have even came up with laws that will made in the future. They say by 2020 they will have to pass laws to prevent bullying towards autonomous vehicles (Hars). I know your think how can you bully a autonomous vehicle? Well they consider bullying an autonomous vehicle includes jumping in front of them to make them stop. Google’s driverless car has already completed 700,000 miles of accident free safe driving (Anthony). That is pretty amazing. But the bummer is that it has not been tested on public roads. By all means it is still impressive. It is estimated that 1,100 lives or 210,000 crashes would be saved or prevented if 10% of cars were autonomous vehicles (Calem). With 50% of vehicles being autonomous there would be 9,600 lives saved and 1.98 million fewer crashes (Calem). At 90% that number jumps up to 27,000 saved lives and 4.22 million fewer crashes (Calem). In other words it is safer to drive autonomous cars. More autonomous car on the roads means less accidents. It is the