We probably won't see wide spread use of autonomous vehicles until closer to the end of this decade but they have tremendous potential for enabling personal mobility for the very young, the old and the physically challenged like Steve Mahan.

Even for the rest of us, autonomous vehicles have the potential to dramatically reduce traffic jams, especially if we apply the tech to small footprint urban vehicles as demonstrated by +General Motors EN-V concepts. Reduced congestion and steadier speeds also means reduced energy use and safer roads.

I love to drive on a winding road, but frankly on my daily highway commute to the office, I'd just as soon sit back, turn on the kindle and let the car do the work.

#autonomousvehicles

Reshared post from +Google

We announced our self-driving car project in 2010 (http://goo.gl/dI6qA) with a clear goal: make driving safer, more enjoyable and more efficient.

There’s much left to design and test, but we’ve now safely completed more than 200,000 miles of computer-led driving, gathering great experiences and an overwhelming number of enthusiastic supporters.

We wanted to share one of our favorite moments from some special research we conducted. Watch this video of Steve, who joined us for a drive on a carefully programmed route to experience being behind the wheel in a whole new way. We organized this test as a technical experiment outside of our core research efforts, but we think it’s also a promising look at what this kind of technology may one day deliver for society if rigorous technical and safety standards can be met.

A version of this video with audio captions is available here: http://goo.gl/k5K9Q

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