Remember that awesome scene in Demolition Man where Sandra Bullock was in a car with Sylvester Stallone and the car drove all by itself? It just got real, pal …
We've seen plenty of concepts for self-driving cars, but now BMW has thrown their hat into the ring. Best of all, instead of showing off their car in the relative safety of a test track, they've gone for one of the most challenging driving environments in the world, the speed limit free German Autobahn.
In a similar way to Google's self-driving cars, BMW's awkwardly named ConnectedDrive Connect (CDC) uses four types of sensors, radar, cameras, laser scanners and ultrasound distance sensors, to stay aware of the car's surroundings. The big difference is that BMW wanted the car to look as much like a normal 5 Series as possible, with few external clues (other than the giant ConnectedDrive graphics) to tip you off.
BMW believes that the system could be available in production cars within 10 to 15 years, but given the way this type of technology has been progressing recently, I'm thinking it could be even earlier than that.
Now, when ladies are trying to, as Three Stacks said, "speeding on the way to the club/ Trying to hurry up to get to some/ Baller or singer or somebody like that/ And try to put on her makeup in the mirror" … well, now it won't end up in a tragedy.
[Source: DVICE]