Ready to have your mind blown?
Google said Monday that it is bringing its self-driving prototype cars to Austin. The company brought one of its Koala cars to Thinkery, a children's museum in Austin, where they received some interesting questions.
When asked if the car had windshield wipers, a Google employee replied, "Yes, but not on the windshield. They’re on our sensors—our car’s 'eyes.'" Essentially, the Google car doesn't have windshield wipers because it doesn't need them.
Let that sink in for a second.
The ultimate goal of an autonomous car is to be, well, fully autonomous. A self-driving car wouldn't require any human input other than specifying a destination. To that end, Google's self-driving prototype doesn't have windshield wipers because humans aren't required to see out of it.
This brave new world of "cars" truly aren't cars as we understand them. Yes, they have four wheels and take people from point A to point B, but the similarities end there. If humans don't need to drive these cars, a very different approach to design is allowed.
When it was initially revealed that Google's car didn't have a steering wheel or pedals, minds were blown.
"They won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal… because they don’t need them. Our software and sensors do all the work," said Chris Urmson, director of Google's Self-Driving Car Project, when the Koala prototype was first announced. "It was inspiring to start with a blank sheet of paper and ask, 'What should be different about this kind of vehicle?'"
The fact that it doesn't have windshield wipers isn't news and it shouldn't come as a surprise, and yet somehow, it does. Google's vision of the car requires a complete recalibration of our understanding.
With the development of self-driving cars comes an endless stream of questions about design, safety and regulation. Windshield wipers, which are otherwise an afterthought, become a fascinating, important discussion.
Google plans to bring a handful of its prototypes to Austin for testing on the same roads as its Lexus SUVs. The company initially brought cars to Austin to further development on roads that provided a different set of challenges than those of Mountain View, Calif.
The Koala cars and Lexuses will be testing in a small area north and northeast of downtown Austin and Google is soliciting feedback from Austinites. Google has been testing self-driving cars since 2009, with the steering wheel-less prototypes hitting the roads of Mountain View earlier this summer.