Cars in future: Robot drivers, sunlight power

[AVANTI R5]

Envision a future where the roads are crammed with vehicles driven by robots, and where it's possible to push a button and within moments have an automobile arrive at your location.

"This may look like fun," said Sebastian Thrun, a computer science and artificial intelligence professor at Stanford University. "But I submit, if we look forward 40 years, this may have huge implications on transportation as a whole."

As the automotive industry looks to go green -- touting hybrid cars and battery power -- academics who gathered Monday at the Society of Automotive Engineers convention took those eco-friendly musings one step further. They examined what the world might look like if the entire transportation system were overhauled to be more eco-friendlyIn a panel discussion "Green Mobility: The Long View," experts in the fields of robotics, urban planning and energy came together to imagine this not-too-distant future.

Among the ideas that emerged were unmanned, robotically controlled cars able to maneuver through traffic by communicating with the road and cars around them.

A project under development in the United Arab Emirates called Masdar will ban gas-powered vehicles and instead introduce an all-computerized mass transit system of driverless cars powered by renewable energy. Each pod-like vehicle can be summoned like a taxi and passengers can key-in destinations.

In another scenario, car-sharing could become more popular with people who choose to rent vehicles when they're needed, rather than owning a car, said Robert Cervero, an urban planning professor at University of California-Berkley. The concept is commonplace in Switzerland and gaining traction in American cities.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090...345/1148/rss25

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[impreza_punk]

I don't like that outlook at all, where's the Mad Max'esque fun!?

[IWantASuby]

If I'm going to be in a car, I want to be driving it, especially if it's intended to be sporty. Period.