Vegas gambles on no-driver cars
2012-05-08 06:57
GOOGLE ON THE ROAD: The American state of Nevada has issued a licence for Google to test its driverless car in Las Vegas and Carson City.
CARSON CITY, Nevada - Drivers in Nevada could soon be sharing the road with vehicles that don't need them. Drivers, that is...
Department of Motor Vehicles officials say they've issued Google the nation's first licence to test self-driving cars on public streets.
READY TO MOVE
Nevada officials said on May 7 that demonstrations on the Las Vegas Strip and in Carson City helped to show that the tech company was ready to move the autonomous autos into the next stage of development.
A recent article in Wheels24 showed how a blind man was one of the cars' supervisors.
Self-driving vehicle technology works like auto-pilot to guide a car - in this case a modified Toyota Prius - with little or no intervention from a human operator but the state is hedging its bets by insisting two humans be in the test cars at all times.
A DMV official said the cars would display red plates and an infinity symbol (8) to represent their status as vehicles of the future. When the cars are ready for general use in, perhaps, three to five years, the plates will be green.
