Google’s Self-Driving Cars, Why Technology is More Reliable Than You
In today’s post we discuss Google’s announcement that their self-driving cars have crossed the one million mile mark and explain why we can trust technology more than we can trust humans.
Google recently announced that their self-driving cars had exceeded expectations by surpassing the one million mile mark without any driver. The cars drove ten times more miles autonomously than the CEO Larry Page had anticipated and they have achieved this in only six years. In start contrast, it would take a typical U.S adult 75 years to drive one million miles.
This achievement is one in a series for Google’s self-driving car production team. Last month it was revealed that the cars had driven more than 1.7 million miles through a combination of manual and autonomous driving. More importantly, these cars have proven to be safer than traditional cars. It was reported that during those 1.7 million miles, they were only involved in twelve minor accidents (“light damage, no injuries”) and the self-driving car was never the cause. The team expressed their belief that the self-driving cars that they have built from scratch were ready for local roads saying, “We’re taking this million mile milestone as further proof that fully self-driving vehicles will become a reality, and we’re looking forward to finding out where the next million miles will take us.”
The company’s autonomous vehicles will take to the Californian roads with a speed cap of 25 mph this summer. There will be safety drivers on board with a temporary steering wheel, brake, and accelerator pedal in case of emergencies but the plan is to remove these eventually so the car is self-sufficient. According to Chris Urmson, director of the Google self-driving car project, a key goal for the team is to get the cars out into the public to see how people react to them. This will hopefully convince car companies to consider manufacturing them using Google’s self-driving technology.
This proves how reliable technology is compared to humans. In this fast-paced business environment, no company can afford to make mistakes and these mistakes usually occur because of human error. At Lokad, we understand the importance of technology nowadays and we use it to produce advance analytics. We deliver the most accurate demand forecasts that technology can produce. Through the use of statistical correlations, cloud computing and quantile grids, we ensure that all our clients get the best results and in a timely fashion. Results are available in minutes and notably, our forecasting machine requires no manual intervention. Furthermore, we continuously monitor the forecasts we deliver in order to make the advance inventory optimization technology even better. Contact us today for more information about our inventory optimization software or to arrange a free demo.