Second, Thomas seems to be assuming that most people will buy self-driving cars outright.
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Overall, the NHTSA guidelines indicate that federal regulators are eager to promote research on self-driving cars.
Google lawyers recently helped draft the first state law dealing with self-driving cars, in Nevada.
It allows self-driving cars after they've been tested for 10, 000 miles on private roads.
Google: Project Glass, self-driving cars, pieces of software with charming voices that serve as personal attendants.
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My car company isn't into self-driving cars, but others are: Ford, BMW, Audi.
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Self-driving cars would be the great liberator of people for whom driving is a boring necessity.
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If you think a little bigger, you may think of flying cars or self-driving cars.
Self-driving cars, robotic surgery and robotic exoskeletons for soldiers are indeed serious stuff.
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First and foremost, he said, the self-driving cars would be safer than human-driven cars.
That last bit goes quite a bit further than today's experiments with self-driving cars, though.
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One thing the tech and auto industries can agree on is that self-driving cars are doable.
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But the economics will change dramatically if Google or a car company decides to begin mass-producing self-driving cars.
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Several states, including California, Florida and Nevada, have passed laws allowing operation of self-driving cars on public streets.
Until people stop driving cars that burn gasoline, those vehicles will need to be fed, he says.
Fast forward a decade Google has demonstrated self-driving cars, and people are indeed asking questions of their Android phones.
Google's self-driving cars, which use laser sensors and mapping technology, are examples of Level 3 cars, Mr. Friedman said.
The agency document emphasizes the potential for self-driving cars to reduce highway accidents and deaths, and reduce fossil-fuel emissions.
In some instances, the NHTSA guidelines urge states not to regulate self-driving cars.
Page said he continues to favor projects that seem impossible, like self-driving cars.
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Self-driving cars developed by Google are becoming a regular sight around Silicon Valley.
To its credit, Google has been testing self-driving cars without any legal protections.
It says in part that self-driving cars are closer than they appear because some of the prerequisites already exist.
When Google was outfitting its 12 self-driving cars, it likely used off-the-shelf sensors designed for industrial, military, or laboratory use.
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Technological feats such as self-driving cars and voice-recognition and translation programmes, not long ago a distant hope, are now realities.
If some of this sounds like science fiction, so did manned lunar vehicles in 1950, or self-driving cars in 2000.
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With fewer Chinese doing physical labor, more driving cars instead of bicycles, lifestyle has played a prominent role in the trend.
The state last week released draft rules to govern self-driving cars, which it has approved for testing on its public roads.
Cops would arrive in schools, sometimes driving cars confiscated from drug-dealers, and tell 11- and 12-year-olds about the dangers of illicit substances.
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Self-driving cars could drastically improve road safety, according to Prof Paul Newman, who heads an Oxford University autonomous car project project.
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