Driverless Cars Coming to London
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Self-driving cars are coming; there’s no doubt about that. The technology behind them has progressed in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, from the optimistic pipe dream of the 1950s to one of the most generation-defining innovations of the 21st century.
Car manufactures and tech companies alike are queuing up to get in on the driverless car craze. From Ford to Google, they’ve recently joined forces to form the ‘Self-Driving Coalition For Safer Streets’, aimed at changing the world’s attitude – and legislation – towards the technology.
Imagine a Google self-driving car: “Ok Google, I’m Feeling Lucky”…
Anyhow, Volvo, the motherly figure of the car making industry, has recently announced that in 2017, they intend to trial a small fleet of semi-autonomous vehicles (which will be able to drive without human input, except in bad weather) on the streets of London, before expanding to run a fleet of approximately 100 fully autonomous cars in the capital by 2018. To further Volvo’s ambition, the company wants to make sure that nobody is killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo car by 2020, as part of its ‘Vision 2020’ initiative.
Volvo has been running autonomous trials in one of Sweden’s largest cities, Gothenburg, for over a year now. Seemingly without a hitch. In Britain, too, autonomous cars are creeping into our society. Modern cars are already fitted with automatic braking and lane assistance technology, so we’re already part of the way to full automation. Plus Heathrow Airport operates a fleet of driverless ‘pods’ to ferry people around the airport quicker than bus connections. Aiming to be at the centre of global innovation, the government has been largely supportive of the new technology, investing £100 million in what it calls an ‘Intelligent Mobility Fund’.
Driverless cars offer the potential to create a much safer and more efficient transport infrastructure, with an estimated 90% of car accidents being caused by driver error. Initially, we’ll have to supervise our driverless chauffeurs, but as they develop we should be able to – quite literally – take a back seat (and maybe have lunch) and let the car do the work.
While they’ll never be trusted by everyone, and they’ll probably spend most of their time ‘recalculating the route’, autonomous vehicles are the future, and a very bright – and safe – future at that.