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The Car Connection reports that back in May Google unveiled the prototype of its first autonomous car built in-house but there were a few features that the new model lacked — for example, a steering wheel and brake pedal. Now, California's DMV has told Google to return those accouterments to their traditional locations so that riders can take "immediate physical control" of the car, if necessary. That and other autonomous vehicle regulations kick in on September 15.
"This isn't a huge setback for Google," writes Richard Reed. "After all, the prototypes aren't nearly ready for primetime, they're just being used for tests. Though the control-less models have worked fine on closed tracks, with no accidents to date, they'll eventually be navigating real streets in real traffic, so they'll need to be up to code. In fact, the DMV may tighten up things a bit further next month, when it issues regulations concerning test vehicles on public roads." In the long run, though, we'd expect the DMV to loosen some of these restrictions. It will undoubtedly take years for regulators and the public to begin trusting autonomous cars — and even then, it's likely that automakers will keep some kind of manual override system in place. After all, given the safety records of autonomous cars — records that will certainly improve with the rollout of vehicle-to-vehicle technology — we're hopeful that motorists will (almost) never need to use them.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Friday August 29 2014, @12:30PM
Yeah... But those things aren't really critical to operating the car. There's a huge difference in feel when driving with a steering wheel to driving with a joystick. Joysticks are going to be way more sensitive, require much smaller movements to preform the same operation and the action (turning the wheel vs. pushing the joystick from side to side) are much different as well. I know lots of people that royally suck at video games simply because they just can't handle the control style.
I could see some huge advantages to a controller though, someone that's paralyzed from the waste down, or "little people" too short to reach the peddle could operate break and gas and steer the car with just their hands. But again as it is now they usually have vehicles modified to have an accelerator/break buttons on the steering wheel so really the controller still isn't necessary and would be a huge change in control style.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe