Photo: techcrunch.com
We’re definitely living some rather interesting times these days. Autonomous driving cars are already here and in the near future, we’ll be seeing fully autonomous ones making their first appearance. How is all that going to change the way we drive? Could it become so popular that human driving will be completely abolished? Elon Musk thinks so.
The Tesla CEO is known for his grim predictions and brilliant inventions and on few occasions was he proven wrong. In a recent statement at the NVIDIA GPU conference he predicted that autonomous driving cars will take over and turn human driving extinct not by natural means (as in nobody will want to drive their cars) but by force.
His argument? Self-driving cars will be much safer than the ones driven by humans (that, as we all know can be easily distracted) and will force lawmakers to take action, as in banning the ‘more dangerous’ means of getting around altogether. Quite grim, right?
Of course, we’re still years away from that happening but not from seeing the first fully autonomous driving cars hitting the market. According to the same man, "It's much easier than people think. Once you're above 50 mph, it gets easier. The set of possibilities are reduced.”
The biggest issue seems to be in the 15 to 50 mph (25 to 80 km/h) because that’s where most of the unexpected happens, such as open manholes, potholes and pedestrians. For highway cruising, things are a lot less complicated.
Google could be the first company to launch such a car. They’ve been working on it for quite some time and showed prospect. That also tells a lot about how the industry is shifting, big, traditional car makers facing competition from IT giants and software companies.
Immediately after his statement, however, Musk took to Twitter and published a tweet saying that Tesla is "strongly in favor of people being allowed to drive their cars and always will be" probably due to the heat he was facing from the auto community.
His argument? Self-driving cars will be much safer than the ones driven by humans (that, as we all know can be easily distracted) and will force lawmakers to take action, as in banning the ‘more dangerous’ means of getting around altogether. Quite grim, right?
Of course, we’re still years away from that happening but not from seeing the first fully autonomous driving cars hitting the market. According to the same man, "It's much easier than people think. Once you're above 50 mph, it gets easier. The set of possibilities are reduced.”
The biggest issue seems to be in the 15 to 50 mph (25 to 80 km/h) because that’s where most of the unexpected happens, such as open manholes, potholes and pedestrians. For highway cruising, things are a lot less complicated.
Google could be the first company to launch such a car. They’ve been working on it for quite some time and showed prospect. That also tells a lot about how the industry is shifting, big, traditional car makers facing competition from IT giants and software companies.
Immediately after his statement, however, Musk took to Twitter and published a tweet saying that Tesla is "strongly in favor of people being allowed to drive their cars and always will be" probably due to the heat he was facing from the auto community.
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