China Catches Up With Google's Driverless Car

mikejuk writes "While Google makes headlines with its driverless car and even manages to lobby Nevada to legalize driverless cars on the public road — China quietly pushes ahead on its own. A driverless car navigated 286km of expressway all on its own. Using nothing but a pair of video cameras and laser rangefinders, i.e. no GPS, it managed to arrive safely even through fog. The computer vision based approach means that at the moment it can only drive during daylight hours. Google might need to speed up ..."

Re:ethics of experiments involving humans

[Kell Bengal]

Hello, roboticist here. I'd like to ask you a question: how were power steering, cruise control, anti-lock breaks, fuel injection and collision avoidance radar tested before it was introduced to the commercial car market? When you've answered that question, I'd like to ask you how robotic cars are substantially different in terms of 'experimentation'.

Can it drive like some rich Chinese people?

[codeAlDente]

I've heard that in China, sometimes richer people drive cars while poorer people ride bicycles. If a car hits a bike rider, the bike rider can sue for damages. Thus, it can be advantageous, and it's allegedly common, for a car driver to accidentally hit a biker, back up, and run him over again to finish him off. I wonder if and when some company (maybe Google, maybe not) will have cars that do this.