Google's Gargantuan Push For Cars With No Steering Wheel By 2020

Google’s Chris Urmson (R) shows a self-driving car to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx (L), alongside company Chairman Eric Schmidt. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

After six years of work and some concerns from the public, Google is   pushing even harder for its driverless cars to become reality, and now insists they will be on the road within five years.

Chris Urmson, director of Google’s self driving car project, has stated the technology will be not only widespread but also relatively standard by 2020. Unlike the semi-autonomous cars being developed by automakers, Google’s vehicles will have no steering wheel whatsoever, being controlled exclusively by computer.

Such a push could meet considerable resistance from regulators and drivers, who will want to be assured of the technology’s safety and ability to react to road conditions. Security is even a worry for some, after last month it emerged that a connected and highly-computerized car from one of the unnamed traditional automotive manufacturers was hacked by a 14-year-old with his pocket money.

Nevertheless, driverless cars are obviously the future of much travel, and many people can see how they will potentially reduce accidents dramatically while making the commuting experience much more pleasant.

Urmson, speaking at the TED 2015 Conference in Vancouver, told delegates that it looked like his eldest son would be taking his driving test in four and a half years. The Google team, he said, was “committed to making sure that doesn’t happen”, as a result of the arrival of driverless cars.

One of Google’s strongest arguments with regulators and the public is the potential safety of driverless cars: as long as the technology works correctly, that is. Arguing that the annual deaths globally of over 1.2 million people on the roads can be drastically reduced by reducing the human error element, the technology giant says driverless cars will help prevent many accidents before they happen. Electric car manufacturer Tesla feels the same, with CEO Elon Musk also insisting this week that the US could eventually want to “outlaw” human driven cars.