​Self-Driving Vehicles

Image by James from Pixabay

​​​By BD Bondy
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I purposely used the word vehicles, because there is way more to this than just cars.
 
Starting with cars, I’m in Phoenix. I’ve been seeing these weird, decked out cars here for at least a year now. They have cameras on them, and odd, spinning things. The cameras are all over the car. Here’s a couple of picture.

This particular car was EMPTY. There was nobody inside at all. I don’t know if it’s an empty taxi, or if it’s just a test vehicle, but I see at least one, and usually several, every single day I go out. Okay, so I went out again the next day and another Waymo car pulled up next to me. There was a single person inside, in the back seat.
 
The Waymo vehicle is being tested in several markets here in the US. Self driving, driverless taxis are being tried out in various cities across the country. They are here and now. Probably not coming to Abiquiu anytime soon, but you never know. For a brief time there was an electric car charging station at Bodes, so there.
 
Here’s @CleoAbram in a driverless taxi:

It’ll take some getting used to.
 
And did I mention self-driving semi trucks? They’re already out and about. While still being tested, and seemingly popular in Texas, they are being developed for obvious reasons. Want some videos? Look HERE and HERE. 
 
Okay, so you think self driving cars are something that’ll never happen? How about self driving helicopters? As taxis? I can tell you, they are also here, and being tested. China just licensed their first company for doing exactly that, read about it HERE. 
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Fully autonomous flying taxis. Yup. They are a real thing. A company called Joby just delivered their version to the US Air Force. The government is investing in this technology. Read about it HERE.
 
New York and L.A. are already in preparations for this service. Delta Airlines has a large stake in Joby and is planning service from their airlines to continue on to an air taxi. These are 2 of the busiest and most congested road traffic places in the country. Soon, you’ll be able to bypass all that nonsense on the ground and get to your meeting in a timely fashion, by flying over it all. Well, maybe not you, or me, but some rich business dude.
 
While we won’t likely be getting these technologies to Abiquiu anytime soon, there is one that seems very plausible. You may have seen the 60 Minutes interview with Amazon about your packages being delivered by drone. While Amazon has seemingly dropped the ball on that, there are other companies, like Walmart and UPS, that are not only interested in that technology, they are actively using it.
 
Amazon has only delivered maybe a hundred packages, to possibly 2 homes, over the last 3 years? Google, UPS and Walmart have delivered tens of thousands packages. There are several companies in the US working on this technology, and fortunately, there are other countries doing it as well. Australia seems to be the most successful, so far. Watch the amazing video.

It seems crazy that we live in a time of autonomous self-driving cars, and then think about them flying! We are at the very beginning edge of this technology, but it’s here, like it or not. ​