Driverless Cars and the Colorado Hyperloop

Important development with Google wanting to develop and deploy more driverless cars. I dont believe it will negatively effect the use of the hyperloop. It may even bolster it as the hyperloop will be for long distance travel, but the short leg to and from the hyperloop station will be with the battery powered driverless cars. As with the hyperloop, everything about the cars will be automated, as the BBC reports.

The most significant thing about the design is that it does not have any controls, apart from a stop/go button.

For early testing, extra controls will be fitted so one of Google’s test drivers can take over if there is a problem.

The controls will simply plug in, and Mr Urmson believes that over time, as confidence in the technology grows, they will be removed entirely.

The rapid nature of development that will see them possibly in the next year. Will the general public be pursuaded? I think so:

Advocates claim that autonomous cars have the potential to revolutionise transport, by making roads safer, eliminating crashes, and decreasing congestion and pollution. In the year to June 2013, more than 23,500 people were killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents in the UK, according to government figures.

The development of other technology will key to the hyperloops eventual adoption. Even if the “other” technology is point to point, rapid, efficient, driverless transit machines (cars, airplanes, boats, helicopters/segways….).