The second most prominent element on Google 's "About" page is its mission statement. After scanning past the impressive graphic that displays the company 's ubiquity in full force, the words "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful" are the first to greet the reader. And for almost 20 years, it 's been succeeding. In 2010, they unveiled their most audacious project yet - the fully autonomous car of the future. With safety and its trademark sense of innovation in the driver 's seat, Google 's attempt to help people everywhere access the things they need is on the cusp of hitting the road.
Company
Back in 2010 when the project was announced, Google positioned itself at the forefront …show more content…
Even today, its strength lies in how long the company has been in the game. With close to 10 years of research in the making, Google 's advantage of already having scoped out the field and grown a reputation with its consumers puts it ahead of Uber in terms of experience, who only announced their partnership with Carnegie Mellon to research autonomous vehicles in early 2015 (Craig 2015). The company bills itself as an extremely consumer-focused, and was even ranked #1 by the Reputation Institute as its Global Corporate Social Responsibility list (Miceli 2015). Unfortunately, Google is behind in many other aspects. Their agreement with Fiat Chrysler to produce 100 autonomous vehicles is the only deal with a car manufacturer in the works (Barr 2016). Because of this, the low number of vehicles Google has on the road actually test driving and gathering information has put them behind their competitors in terms of hard data. Right now, their project is more about the …show more content…
A survey by the American Automobile Association shows that 75% of drivers are still afraid to ride in one, but it is also worth mentioning that those who already owned vehicles with partially autonomous features were 75% more likely to trust the accuracy and safety of the technology than those who owned a traditional vehicle (Stepp 2016). The possibility for the tides to turn in favor of this new technology is very high, but there are a few other circumstances to consider. Many of the millennials that would be the target audience for self-driving cars do not have the money to shell out for the added features. Until autonomous technology becomes fully integrated into the car market, 50% of people asked in the University of Michigan survey were not willing to pay for the extra $2000+ for their vehicles to be equipped with such add-ons (Schoettle 2016). The technological industry itself still has some catching up to do as well. Companies use sensors that are almost too outdated already - cameras and lasers are easily affected by bad weather and even poorly-lit areas can cause major problems. The preferred new sensor, lidar, is a popular choice, but at the moment is extremely costly to produce, at around $8000 per vehicle (Lienert 2016). However, this cost is projected to decrease substantially in the coming years. At the moment, it seems that the
Company
Back in 2010 when the project was announced, Google positioned itself at the forefront …show more content…
Even today, its strength lies in how long the company has been in the game. With close to 10 years of research in the making, Google 's advantage of already having scoped out the field and grown a reputation with its consumers puts it ahead of Uber in terms of experience, who only announced their partnership with Carnegie Mellon to research autonomous vehicles in early 2015 (Craig 2015). The company bills itself as an extremely consumer-focused, and was even ranked #1 by the Reputation Institute as its Global Corporate Social Responsibility list (Miceli 2015). Unfortunately, Google is behind in many other aspects. Their agreement with Fiat Chrysler to produce 100 autonomous vehicles is the only deal with a car manufacturer in the works (Barr 2016). Because of this, the low number of vehicles Google has on the road actually test driving and gathering information has put them behind their competitors in terms of hard data. Right now, their project is more about the …show more content…
A survey by the American Automobile Association shows that 75% of drivers are still afraid to ride in one, but it is also worth mentioning that those who already owned vehicles with partially autonomous features were 75% more likely to trust the accuracy and safety of the technology than those who owned a traditional vehicle (Stepp 2016). The possibility for the tides to turn in favor of this new technology is very high, but there are a few other circumstances to consider. Many of the millennials that would be the target audience for self-driving cars do not have the money to shell out for the added features. Until autonomous technology becomes fully integrated into the car market, 50% of people asked in the University of Michigan survey were not willing to pay for the extra $2000+ for their vehicles to be equipped with such add-ons (Schoettle 2016). The technological industry itself still has some catching up to do as well. Companies use sensors that are almost too outdated already - cameras and lasers are easily affected by bad weather and even poorly-lit areas can cause major problems. The preferred new sensor, lidar, is a popular choice, but at the moment is extremely costly to produce, at around $8000 per vehicle (Lienert 2016). However, this cost is projected to decrease substantially in the coming years. At the moment, it seems that the