If Auckland was the first city to have automated cars there would be huge prime mover advantage for technology companies in New Zealand as the inevitable global expansion occurs.
Google’s fleet of robotic Toyota Priuses has now logged more than 190,000 miles (about 300,000 kilometers), driving in city traffic, busy highways, and mountainous roads with only occasional human intervention. The project is still far from becoming commercially viable, but Google has set up a demonstration system on its campus, using driverless golf carts, which points to how the technology could change transportation even in the near future.
…Thrun and his Google colleagues, including co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are convinced that smarter vehicles could help make transportation safer and more efficient: Cars would drive closer to each other, making better use of the 80 percent to 90 percent of empty space on roads, and also form speedy convoys on freeways. They would react faster than humans to avoid accidents, potentially saving thousands of lives. Making vehicles smarter will require lots of computing power and data, and that’s why it makes sense for Google to back the project…
Of course it would also necessitate faster data networks in and around the city benefitting us all as a side benefit.
