"The Aliens of Cars "Autonomous Vehicles" (Post One)

"“Driving” the Google Self-Driving Car"by jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Technology is something I’ll always be fascinated by no matter how old I get. From playing with sticks and stones to using iPhones and MacBook pros, I can say that the human race has evolved substantially and is continuing to do so. When thinking about future tech, the first thing that comes to my mind, especially during the pandemic, is self-driving cars. To have an autonomous vehicle that drives you from point A to point B, which will reduce human contact that can significantly reduce the risk of getting infected by the current virus outbreak or, God forbid, another outbreak in the future. Also coming from a low-middle class family, this would be another reason to save your money from spending it on cars when you have Google's Waymo, or Amazon’s Zoox to get you to places. Having autonomous vehicles will help save lots of money in the long run.

Considering that autonomous cars are just now starting to progress, it’s important to test out the car in multiple different scenarios and also have a person in the driver’s seat just in case something goes wrong. New York Times tech reporter Shira Ovida discusses how self-driving cars are now starting to roll out of the factory and are on the public roads in her article “Driverless Cars Go Humble to Get Real”. Ovide writes, “General Motors' driverless car will soon remove human minders from its self-driving test car in San Francisco.” Transitioning from having a person in the driver seat in case something goes wrong to having no one in the driver seat will be an immense boost to the autonomous vehicles industry. Meanwhile in Arizona, a company owned by Google by the name of Waymo has already hit the public roads. As stated on the Waymos website, they are a company that manages commercial autonomous taxis and has “one goal which is to reduce car accidents”. Ovida from the New York times further mentioned how Waymo is now transitioning to a car that is completely driverless and is broadening out their project. Ovida writes “Waymo has recently expanded its driverless taxi service in Phoenix and without a person in the driver seat.” Although this self-driving taxi is fully functional, they only operate in the tiny section of suburban Arizona where the data set of the area has been fully recorded and downloaded into the car. Who knows, it might take a couple more years or even less for companies like Waymo to hit the big cities.

Owning a company that has a very high potential and being supported by multi-billionaire like Jeff Bezos, the founder and Ceo of Amazon, only screams success in my book. The host of “Sway” from New York Times opinion, Kara Swisher, discusses how big companies are willing to support the idea of autonomous vehicles in her article “Autonomous Vehicles Take Another Big Leap.” Swisher writes, “Amazon has unveiled an electric autonomous vehicle as part of what will likely be an aggressive attempt by the company to make Robo-taxis a thing.” She also stated how much of progress the whole autonomous vehicle sector is making with “AutoX being rolled out in Shenzhen China, Google’s Waymor has done the same in Arizona, Baidu got a permit to test some cars on public roads in heavily trafficked Beijing, and General Motors Cruise is testing in San Francisco.” Although these sound too good to be true, we have to consider the fact that these aren’t companies that have been made overnight, it takes years after years, mistake after mistake to get to where we are in the self-driving vehicle era. Swisher further mentioned, “these companies have spent billions of dollars over the last decade were off to a rocky start and faced major setbacks, including management upheavals, technology snafus, and tragic accidents, all in a quest to remove the driver from the front seat.” In a nutshell, all of these companies are investing huge money in autonomous vehicle companies so that we, the public, can get from place to place for instance, when the pandemic struck the U.S and people were too afraid to go on Uber, Lift, or even public transportation like buses and barts. With a big company like Amazon investing so much in an autonomous vehicle company, my question is that are we going to see autonomous Amazon deliveries in the coming years?

While it seems like these multi-billionaire companies are investing tremendous amounts of money in a project that could potentially fail, it will definitely save lots of money for us in the future, for people who don't want to invest in a car and are too afraid to use public transportation if, god forbid, there was to be another virus outbreak in the future. Self-driving autonomous vehicles have been in the years of making and although there is still lots of room for improvement when it comes to it being operated in heavy traffic areas and operating in major cities, it definitely has the potential to succeed in the world that is always evolving. With major news coming out on autonomous vehicles in just this year, it can be a handful for someone who knows nothing about it, so might as well put on your reading glasses, tighten up your seatbelts and see where the future of autonomous vehicles take us.