Approaching a red light the other day, I half-expected my car to stop by itself. A split second later, I realised it would not and put my foot on the brake. That is the problem of driving a car that has half a mind.
We have long been promised that fully self-driving cars are about to take to our roads, but the technology remains out of reach. “It’s an extraordinary grind?.?.?.?a bigger challenge than launching a rocket and putting it in orbit around the Earth,” John Krafcik, chief executive of Google’s sister company Waymo, told the Financial Times this week.
Instead, there are vehicles such as my new Volvo, equipped with “pilot assist” — software that keeps it cruising at safe speeds and steers it on highways. When your car can slow down and halt behind the vehicle ahead, but ignores a red light on an empty road, it gets confusing.