Driverless Cars (Waymo LLC) This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA. Driverless Cars (Waymo LLC) Luke Wismer

What Are They? The Waymo LLC (Google Car)is a car created to drive itself, without the aid of a human. They are vehicles that use combinations of sensors, cameras, radars and Artificial Intelligence to travel between destinations without a human operator. The vehicle also has a built in GPS to navigate to a predetermined destination. They are powered by AI technologies such as image recognition, neural networks and machine learning.  The Waymo uses a mix of sensors which combine in the system to optimize results. The system learns more as it drive, so maturity is very important. This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC.

Who Made Them? In 1980 the first self-sufficent driverless cars was made with Carnegie Mellon University's Navlab. In 1984 projects with Mercedes-Benz were conducted but no cars were ever allowed on the roads. Since then many major companies have worked on this fanatasy including: Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Continental Automotive, Autoliv Inc, Bosch, Nissan, Toyota, Audi, Volvo, Vislab, Oxford, Uber and Google.  The first model opened to public traffic was Vislabs car called BRAiVE. Google has made the biggest push lately with the creation of Waymo LLC which has been tested on public traffic many times. This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC. This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-NC.

Why did they decide to invent this product Many of these big name companies have decided to create this model so that they can have the first model of it.  Almost all inventions that are made are created to make life easier for humans, this one would fall under that category. This invention was also created with the hope of blind people being able to transport themselves around. Driverless Cars can also reduce the amount of crashes and accidents that happen. So ultimately creating a safer environement. Without having to worry about poor or intoxicated drivers. This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY.

How does this company expect profit? The driverless technology is an added feature onto the base price. Ranging from an extra $5-15 thousand. The companies will make profit by selling it as an add-on feature.  For example the Model X tesla costs $18,000 in parts and $10,000 in labour and production costs. They sell the car for $80,000 and $85,000 with the autonomous feature. They will still make a large profit of around $55,000. This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-NC.