Google is making moves with these driverless cars! Hit the jump for the recent news on the Google cars.
Driving on long, lonely desert roads through the state of Nevada, sometimes the only hint of other human beings comes in the form of a single car, speeding in the opposite direction and passing for only a second.
Only now, that car might not have anyone inside of it.
Nevada has officially issued licenses to Google for its driverless cars, meaning that the tech company is free to experiment with their creations in the state. The cars will be marked by a distinctive red license plate with an infinity symbol on the side.
“I felt using the infinity symbol was the best way to represent the ‘car of the future’.†Department Director Bruce Breslow said. “The unique red plate will be easily recognized by the public and law enforcement and will be used only for licensed autonomous test vehicles. When there comes a time that vehicle manufacturers market autonomous vehicles to the public, that infinity symbol will appear on a green license plate.
The future of automated cars might seem scary from a safety perspective, especially if we’re living with paranoid video games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. But considering how many human beings are barely capable of getting behind the wheel, either from being intoxicated or on a cell phone, automation definitely seems like a step up. Google’s autonomous cars are still regular cars, just with special electronics. So the driver can control the car manually by tapping on the brakes and taking over.
The press release indicates that while Google is the first company to get licenses, other manufacturers have expressed the desire to test their automated cars in the state.
