Nevada's green light marks a milestone in automation
A new self-driving truck from Daimler has been approved by Nevada officials to operate on the desert state's public roads. It was a major win for auto makers in their quest toward a driverless future.
If Daimler had built Optimus Prime...
...he probably would have looked something like this. In this handout picture from Daimler, a Freightliner Inspiration Truck with a rather flashy Transformers-esque grill glides across a lonely highway while its driver demonstratively keeps his hands off the steering wheel. During an unveiling ceremony on Tuesday night, the company said the driver had his hands on the wheel the whole time.
'Look ma, no hands!'
In the big rigs of the future, Daimler imagines drivers will be able to relax or take care of other tasks while self-driving semis guide those on board to their destination. Wood-paneled floors, comfy seats and futuristic dashboards are meant to make a job that has declined in popularity all the more attractive.
Eyes on the road? What road?
Daimler's self-driving semi truck wasn't its first foray into the realm of fully automated automobiles. The company has also previously showed off its Mercedes-Benz F015, a luxury vehicle with an abundance of interior space. The best part? Whichever direction the car goes, someone can always be facing backwards.
The maiden voyage
A non forward-facing driver was one thing the folks at Daimler didn't want to risk as onlookers watched one of its new big rigs navigate switchbacks as it climbed to the top of the Hoover Dam on Tuesday. Below, Nevada officials handed license plates over to company executives for the new trucks, marking their approval for the trucks' use on the state's public roads.
Everyone's got to start somewhere
Before the new self-driving trucks were permitted to traverse Tuesday's perilously tight curves, they had to log some 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) on a test circuit in Germany, like the one seen here. That spot in the background is an an S-class prototype reaching speeds of up to 70 km/h and braking within centimeters of a target.
Speaking of starting somewhere...
...remember when driverless cars used to look like this? Back in 2008, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a short drive from Daimler's Hoover Dam ceremony on Tuesday, General Motors demonstrated its unmanned Chevrolet Tahoe. Known as "The Boss," this heavily outfitted rig once won GM a prestigious DARPA award for navigating a 60-mile obstacle course - without a driver, of course.
From behemoth to bubble
This undated handout photo released by Google in December 2014 shows one of Google's self-driving prototypes zipping around the company's test track in northern California. Indeed, today's driverless vehicles are much more discreet than their predecessors.
Leading the way
So discreet are today's driverless cars that residents of Mountain View, Calif. - home to Google - have been known to be sitting in traffic when one of the tech giant's experimental vehicles pulls up beside them - sans driver, of course.