In Detroit, Google Makes a Case for Driverless Cars

DETROIT — The automobile industry has spent the last century trying to forge a visceral connection between drivers and their cars. On Wednesday, the head of Google’s driverless-car program came here to declare much of that bond may soon be a thing of the past.

Chris Urmson, director of self-driving cars at Google, acknowledged that a certain percentage of consumers are “really passionate about the driving experience” and take pleasure in muscular performance and steering through curves.

“But a lot of people buy a car because they want to get from one place to another,” he said.

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/business/in-detroit-google-makes-a-case-for-driverless-cars.html

Google's driverless car avoids bump in the road with temporary steering wheel

California's Department of Motor Vehicles recently ruledthat autonomous vehicles would require manual controls if they were to be tested on its roads, putting another obstacle on Google's radar.

But Mountain View has just provided an update on its driverless car project, and apparently it always knew that California law would required test vehicles to have a manual fallback option.

Google says it "had a plan ready", and that plan was to fit a temporary steering wheel to its cars. That obviously contradicts Google's master plan for a totally autonomous vehicle, but after testing it should be able to ditch the wheel - or at least that's the hope.

No delays ahead

Source:
http://www.techradar.com/news/car-tech/google-s-driverless-car-avoids-bump-in-the-road-with-temporary-steering-wheel-1265737