Google Orders Fleet of 20,000 Driverless Jaguars
Google Orders Fleet of 20,000 Driverless Jaguars
BY PHIL BAKER MARCH 27, 2018
John Krafcik, the CEO of Waymo, stands with the Jaguar
I-Pace vehicle, Tuesday, March 27, 2018, in New York. Self-driving car pioneer
Waymo will buy up to 20,000 of the electric vehicles from Jaguar Land Rover.
(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Just days after Uber’s self-driving car effort suffered a
major setback, Google Alphabet announced a deal with Jaguar to buy 20,000 cars
for its driverless (autonomous) service that it expects to be operational in
just four years. The new Jaguar model, designed and built by Jaguar Land Rover,
will be used by Google’s Waymo ride-hail service, where you call a car and it
picks you up and takes you to your destination, all without a driver. The newly
designed car, called the Jaguar I-Pace, will be all-electric and have a range
of 230 miles, similar to the Chevy Bolt.
Uber's Death Car and the Cracks in Liberal Culture
Production will begin in two years and Jaguar expects to
build the first 20,000 cars by 2022. The initial roll-out will take place in
Phoenix, where testing has begun using Chrysler Pacifica vans.
Waymo has been a leader in developing self-driving cars,
and their business model includes licensing their technology to other
automakers.
But Waymo, along with the many other companies developing
autonomous cars, will face resistance from regulators after a self-driving Uber
vehicle hit and killed a woman crossing a street in Tempe, Ariz., with an
observer in the car.
The accident occurred on a dark highway with the car
traveling 40mph. Its sensors were designed to detect obstacles in the roadway
such as pedestrians, but failed to work, and the onboard observer was not
paying attention at the time of the accident.
As a result, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey ordered Uber to
halt all its testing in Arizona. This, after Ducey urged Uber and other
self-driving car companies to leave California and come to Arizona, promising
them that there would be none of the regulations that California required. He even promised the car companies that they
would not need to disclose anything about their programs or any accidents that
might occur.
“Arizona welcomes Uber self-driving cars with open arms
and wide-open roads. While California puts the brakes on innovation and change
with more bureaucracy and more regulation, Arizona is paving the way for new
technology and new businesses,” he said in a statement. “California may not
want you, but we do.”
He was referring to California DMV’s ban on Uber
self-driving cars in San Francisco because the company refused to apply for an autonomous
testing permit.
The developing and testing of self-driving cars involves
solving a myriad of very complex problems that need to address all sorts of
traffic and pedestrian patterns and road situations. Autonomous cars have been
touted by their developers as a way to save thousands of lives when fully
operational. But saving lives will need to wait a bit because of this death.
Surprisingly, what occurred in the Uber accident leading to the fatality was
one of the simplest of conditions an autonomous car needs to handle: an
obstacle in front of the car traveling on a straight road.
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