FORD has NIGHT DRIVING CAR in Arizona

The USA is once again Leading the World on the forefront of auto-technology!

from USA TODAY: "SAN FRANCISCO - Call it a car with night vision goggles.
​Ford engineers working on the company's autonomous car technology recently succeeded in making a self-driving Ford Fusion lap its Arizona Proving Grounds in complete darkness, using laser radar, or Lidar, as its guide.

OK, so obviously they are making a point, and a great one at that. 

It is possible, NOW, to have a car get around without any lights and so the cameras on board are not really cameras at all. They are LIDAR devices, a kind of radar that many engineering firms use to survey terrain, buildings, and all conditions of the environment.

It's not just Google doing this stuff.

• The car drove with no headlights, and no driver.
• It collected environment object and terrain data by beams of laser light shot out into the desert.
• On-board computers instantly concluded where the car was in relation to the landscape data provided by those laser scans.

FORD DRIVERS wore military-grade night vision goggles in order to monitor the car's behavior.  See how this went down with the Youtube video below:

 Ford is testing dozens of these vehicles all over.  So are other car companies.  This phenomenon is happening all over the world. The auto makers know it is coming, and being pushed by Google they are moving quick to implement.
Google is also expanding its self-driving car test program, but Google lacks the car manufacturing capability, for now.  

FORD / GOOGLE ALLIANCE  last week

a week ago... Ford and Google Teamed Up (alliance) to Support Driverless Cars!

In an April 27 New York Times story it was reported that:
​DETROIT — In an unusual alliance between a traditional automaker and a technology company, Ford Motor and Google on Wednesday joined to lead a coalition of companies that advocate federal approval of driverless cars in the near future.
By teaming up to promote regulations that favor fully-autonomous vehicles, Ford and Google may be moving toward closer cooperation on the actual development of driverless models.
Ford’s chief executive, Mark Fields, has said in recent months that his company is evaluating potential partnerships with other firms on autonomous vehicles, but has not made any formal moves in that direction.
Still, by forming a public policy coalition that includes Google, Ford is aligning with Silicon Valley’s most prominent supporter of cars that can operate without a driver.
Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/ford-and-google-team-up-tosupport-driverless-cars.html?_r=0

The nation’s top auto safety regulator, Mark Rosekind, said the federal government wants to reduce the death toll in auto accidents, and thinks driverless technology could help reduce the annual death toll from traffic accidents: 32,675 people died in auto accidents in 2014!  He said 90 percent of vehicle accidents are human error.

It seems like a no-brainer that computers can do a better job at reducing these mistakes, many of which are from distracted driving, something a computer has no problem with.