Google Unveils Driverless Car sans Steering Wheel and Pedals

First things first, we told you about Google's attempt at making a driverless vehicle and that the company was taking steps to get that project to soar heights. Well, they have. Google's self-driving car is here. Still a prototype, Google has built the car from ground up and their goal is to deliver a seamless driving experience.

Google's prototype relies on built-in sensors and a software system to safely manoeuvre the vehicle. The goal of the project is for self-driving cars to be "significantly" safer than human-driven cars in a few years. Google CEO Sergey Brin said that the project has experienced no crashes during testing, but the cars only operate at speeds of around 40km/h, which gives them more time to react to obstacles.

The car isn't much to look at and there are a lot of features that have gone missing. The car is equipped with only two seats, a place to put some small cargo items, start and stop buttons, and a screen displaying the route.

The two major things that go missing, which might put the fear of God in some car enthusiasts, are the steering wheel and the pedals. Basically, all the traditional controls in the car go missing, in fact even a stereo.

Google plans to make 100 testbed versions and these would retain the manual controls. Google has released a video which shows the company testing the driverless vehicle in real world conditions but in a controlled environment. This truly is the future of transportation!