On May 27, the public got a chance to see and try out the prototype. What was it like, riding in the Google self-driving car?
Two people got in the prototype, buckled up, and used a smartphone app (or pretended to) to tell the car where they wanted to go
The Google car has no steering wheel, no brake pedal, no accelerator, no park-forward-reverse ? so the two passengers knew immediately they would ride in the car, not drive it.
One of them pushed the “start” button, and the car took them to the street address they gave it. When they arrived at their destination, the car turned itself off ? or the passengers pressed the “stop” button ? and the trip was over.
I – Word Understanding
prototype – an original or first model of something from which other forms are copied or developed
steering wheel – a wheel in a vehicle that the driver turns to steer the vehicle
II – Have Your Say
1. The future of driverless car is considered by many attractive. Would you drive one? Let’s look at why driverless car is the future:
safer roads and highways
anyone could drive
drivers can be more productive
2. Unlike google, automakers who are developing autonomous cars still want to keep drivers in charge of their self-driving cars. Let’s look at limitations of the driverless car:
most people love driving
computer crashing or malfunctioning
driveless car can be bad for the economy
