We ’ve been hearing about the impending dawn ofself - driving carsfor a while now – a fewsemi - ego - driving gondola areup for sales agreement already , and they were easily the most believable excogitation in the scientific discipline fiction blockbusterJurassic Park . So the question we ’ve had for a while has been : When are these things amaze on public roads ?
The response is now . NuTonomy , a self - driving company that started at MIT and is now based in Cambridge and Singapore , hasofficially begun test self - driving taxicab on the streets of Singaporein a line territory called 1 North , an area of only about 2.5 square miles . The test is limit to a select turn of riders and just six cars , a fleet nuTonomy hopes to dilate to 1,000 by 2018 .
NuTonomy ’s modifiedRenault ZoeandMitsubishi i - MiEVelectric cars come with an engineer sitting in front who will be prepared to take the rack in the upshot of glitches or HAL - like AI takeovers . It ’s crucial to observe that this is still in the testing stages , as onereporter learned :
nuTonomy
An Associated Press newsman claim a ride Wednesday observe that the base hit driver had to step on the brakes once , when a car was obstructing the test car ’s lane and another vehicle , which seem to be park , suddenly begin moving in the oncoming lane .
So it ’s not perfect yet , plain . The estimable news is that , worldwide , Singapore is generally one of the safer places you could be driving . In 2013 , theWorld Health Organization estimatedthat the city - commonwealth had just 3.6 route dealings fateful harm last per 100 000 universe . ( For comparison , the United States see 10.6 ; Brazil , which just host the Rio Olympics , saw 23.4 . )
Either way , it ’s an exciting step forward in this novel applied science , a edition of which will be hit American street very soon as Uber and Volvo gear up to test theirself - push cabs in Pittsburgh .
nuTonomy/YouTube
h / t : Bloomberg , Recode
