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From a technical standpoint, the car uses lasers, radar and cameras to construct a 3D image of the world around it, and uses that to make driving decisions.

The driver has a small heads-up display which summarizes what the car’s vision system sees, with color-coded indicators for other vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists and other things it needs to contend with.

The Google cars drive safely in part because they’re programmed to be relentlessly cautious: Unlike many a human driver, they won’t push their luck.

Musk acknowledges that eventually we’ll not only be able to take our hands off the wheel, but there won’t be a steering wheel to begin with.

"This version doesn’t take into account stop signs and stop lights, but a future version will,"

"The more miles that are driven the better it will get," says Musk. "People should see the car improve with every passing week."

automatic braking, help avoid hitting pedestrians and perform other functions

Autonomous cars are expected to reduce traffic congestion and accidents, in addition to easing the burden of long-distance driving for the elderly and others

speeding up development of related technologies such as mapping features and sensors.

Western automakers and technology giants like Google are also developing self-driving vehicles

But the benefits of self-driving cars are so significant that in time the public will demand prohibitions against old-fashioned legacy driving in most public spaces

there are more than 2 billion legacy cars on the road, globally. Currently, the car industry can only produce around 100 million new vehicles a year. Just from a manufacturing perspective, it could take 20 years to build a new fleet that approximates the one we have now.

Fewer cars may also mean shorter travel times, less congestion, and a smaller environmental impact.

Real-time data planning and smart routing are already a reality, and more advances are coming in the wake of "intelligent city" initiatives around the world,

Imagine a world without traffic lights, where vehicular flows "magically" pass through one another and avoid collision

Traffic accidents, though rarer, would still be a possibility; in fact, they might be one of the main impediments to implementation of autonomous systems, demanding a restructuring of insurance and liability that could sustain armies of lawyers for years to com

We are all familiar with viruses crashing our computers, but what if a virus crashes our cars? Resolving these issues is crucial, but none is insurmountable.

new cities, which would cater to the “well-heeled,” would be built in places where rising sea levels would actually improve local climates. Rising temperatures and an increase in arable land as a result of climate change is expected to occur in Russia, Canada, Scandinavia, Chile, Argentina, southern Africa, the Great Lakes region

cities would also make use of newer technologies. Self-driving cars, for example, will transform living patterns due to convoy features that sharply reduce both commute times and greenhouse gas consumption

The car purchasers of the future will not be you and me – cars will be purchased and operated by ride sharing and car sharing companies.

, it is unlikely that major automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Toyota will survive the leap.

while startup automakers like Tesla will thrive on a smaller number of fleet sales to operators like Uber by offering standardized models with fewer options.

884,000 people are employed in motor vehicles and parts manufacturing, and an additional 3.02 million in the dealer and maintenance network.22 Truck, bus, delivery, and taxi drivers account for nearly 6 million professional driving jobs. Virtually all of these 10 million jobs will be eliminated within 10-15 years

Data privacy is a particular concern for German car makers

Beyond Apple and Google, other tech companies are working to get their offerings incorporated into car systems

Samsung Electronics Co

Microsoft Corp. is also edging

The launch of self-driving vehicles in the coming years could bring even more screens into the car, on and off the dashboard, as passengers get more time to work, shop or watch movies on the road.

«Чтобы производить 500 000 автомобилей в год, нам придется закупать весь литий в мире», - сказал Маск на презентации Model 3 в конце марта.

This isn’t the first time that Google’s investing has created a possible conflict of interest. In February, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Google was developing an Uber competitor in anticipation of the launch of its self-driving cars. The search company, through its venture capital arm Google Ventures, had previously invested $258 million in the ride-sharing service in Aug. 2013, with Google chief legal officer David Drummond taking an Uber board seat

Google is extremely wary of the expansion of the vertically-integrated tech giants into other spaces, said sources, and it’s not staying still with Amazon announcing its entry into a local services market that some experts estimate does more than $400 billion in business every year.

Stae is starting with a compliance and payment platform for the sharing economy. Stae wants to create an API that would let Airbnb seamlessly pay (for example) $.75 to the city for a one night stay

Boston is the first partner city to test the platform.