Google wants to quash human driving in the coming years

Google’s self-driving car will hit public roads later this year, the company announced last week. The car has no steering wheel, or pedals so it’s totally up to the computer to do the driving.

This sounds very cool, but it is not a giant leap forward for humanity, technologically speaking. The funny looking little cars use the same software that Google has been using in controlling the Lexus and Toyota cars that have logged in hundreds of thousands of autonomous miles.

Google has spent the last year rigorously testing the prototypes on test tracks, and in keeping with the law of the state of California, the company always makes sure that a human is always on board – in case something goes haywire – with a removable steering wheel and pedals.

The most important thing about Google’s attempt to make a self-driving car is its all-or-nothing approach, which contrasts dramatically with the less aggressive approach adopted by automakers like Audi, Nissan and Mercedes.

There is no doubt that autonomous vehicles are coming, but conventional car makers are rolling the features in bits and pieces. Cars already have features like automatic braking and self-parking.

In the next few years there is going to be a lot more than that, and more complicated urban driving to follow the new technologies.

“We call it a revolution by evolution. We will take it step by step, and add more functionality, add more usefulness to the system,” Thomas Ruchatz, Audi’s head of driver assistance systems and integrated safety says. "Full autonomy is not going to happen just like that.”

That’s exactly what Google thinks is going to happen. The tech giant is not settling for anything less than a fully autonomous vehicle that reduces “driving” to no more than getting in, entering a destination and enjoying the journey.