Google's First Target For Self Driving Vehicles May Be The Elderly

Florence Swanson has lived through every American car from the Ford Model T to the Tesla Model S. Now, at 94, she has stepped into what Google hopes will be the automotive future: self-driving vehicles.

After her painting of a guitar player won a Google contest, she became the oldest person yet to ride in a model with the company’s autonomous technology.

“You haven’t lived until you get in one of those cars,” the Austin, Texas, resident said of her half-hour excursion. “I couldn’t believe that the car could talk. I felt completely safe.”

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TheSteve - 3/3/2016 12:43:36 PM

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It makes sense. Next would be affluent families who want to free up some time not needing mom or dad to cart the kids around to and from school, extracurricular activities, or worry about their teenage son getting drunk at a party and driving afterwards. Taxis would make good sense too, as would public car-on-demand services.

PUGPROUD - 3/3/2016 9:11:41 PM

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Saw an article by a futurist who predicts that by 2050 40% of American workers will be unemployed due to autonomous driven cars (no taxi drivers, no truck drivers, no limo drivers, car sharing means fewer new cars and fewer auto workers) combined with robots and advanced computers. No one can predict the future but there certainly seems to be a trend that technology will displace millions of workers.

TheSteve - 3/3/2016 9:34:55 PM

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I remember reading articles by futurists that predicted cars would ship with factory CB radios, we'd all be living a 20 hour workweek, robots would be doing the chores in homes, and we'd have flying cars (a la The Jetsons, NOT Terrafugia's monstrosity).

I concluded that futurists are very short-sighted.

Dexter1 - 3/4/2016 6:31:10 AM

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Horizontal elevator on wheels. Go Google!