Watch volunteers take a ride in Mountain View, California, in a prototype of the self-driving Google car.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video through and order the topics below in the order they are mentioned.
The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.
Better than a human
Bringing the things in life together
First timers
It knows what to do at any time
My quality of life would improve
Not working on it for long
Today, we have something extra special for you guys, and you guys will be some of the first people outside of our team and outside of Google to ever ride in it.
There it is! Oh wow! Isn’t that cute?
Go ahead and buckle up.
Ok Annie, here we go!
Alright let’s go!
There’s no steering wheel in the way.
It was a big decision for us to go and start building our purpose-built vehicles. And really they’re prototype vehicles. They were a chance for us to explore: what does it really mean to have a self-driving vehicle. But in the small amount of time we’ve been working on it, we have functional prototypes and that’s exciting.
Oh, it’s really cool! It’s like really kind of a space age experience.
Okay. Hurray! We’re like queens.
You sit, relax, you don’t need to do nothing. It knows when it needs to stop, it knows when it needs to go.
It actually rides better than my own car.
Yes. It’s true.
What she really liked was that it slowed down before it went around a curve. And then it accelerated in the curve. She’s always trying to get me to do it that way.
That’s the way I learned in high school driver’s ed.
So if I had a self-driving car, I can spend more time hanging out with my kids, or helping them with their homework, even just tending to them, finding out how their day was and not having to wait till you get home and have dinner and all that so, it’ll be good.
The human feeling of it is very well-engineered and it is very smooth. There is nothing that makes you feel the least bit threatened.
It’s impressive! I’m totally in love with this whole concept.
Our lives are made up of lots and lots of little things, and a lot of those little things for most people have to do with getting from place to place, in order to connect and do things, and be with people, go places that they need to go and do things. And so there is a big part of my life that’s missing, and there is a big part of my life that a self-driving vehicle would bring back to me.
This is a first step for us, and it’s really exciting to see the progress we’ve made. The opportunity for people to just move around and not worry about it, it’s going to be incredibly empowering and incredibly powerful for people.
I love this!
Key:
Better than a human - 4
Bringing the things in life together - 6
First timers -1
It knows what to do at any time - 3
My quality of life would improve - 5
Not working on it for long - 2
