From the ultimate insider – a former General Motors executive and current advisor to the Google SelfDriving Car project – comes the definitive story of the race between Google, Apple, Tesla and Uber to create the driverless car, and what this technological revolution means for our future.
In the past decade, titans of the old automobile industry, like GM, have been partnering with robust tech startups, such as Tesla and Uber, to revolutionize the way we move around the world?and everyone wants a piece of the action. It’s not a question of whether the selfdriving car will disrupt the automobile industry; it’s a question of when, how, and who will do it.
In Autonomy, former GM executive and current advisor to the Google SelfDriving Car project Lawrence Burns offers a sweeping history of the race to make the driverless car a reality. In 2007, the auto industry was about to go belly up. Meanwhile, Google was spearheading its autonomous car project, Travis Kalanick was just getting Uber off the ground, and Elon Musk was preparing to introduce an allnew, electricallypowered Tesla model. Burns takes us through these four major developments, traces how they’ve converged over the past several years, and explains how they’ve set the stage for the mobility revolution. With the first driverless car likely to hit markets in less than ten years, Burns also looks toward the future and explains how this new technology will impact our lives, for better and for worse?from drastically reducing our carbon footprint and eliminating 90 percent of road fatalities, to automating yet another segment of blue collar industries, putting more workers out of a job.
We are on the brink of a technological revolution that promises to fundamentally change how we interact with our world. A chronicle of the past, diagnosis of the present, and prediction of the future, Autonomy is the ultimate guide to understanding the driverless car and to navigating the revolution it sparks.
