Google car 'could put taxis out of business'

Google's self-driving car is threatening to turn New York's iconic taxis into an endangered species.

The internet giant has road tested 10 driverless cars over 1,000,000km – and now stands to put the long-standing service out of business, the New York Post reports.

This month Google rolled out 100 of the two-seater cars, which use sensors and lasers to navigate even the trickiest of streets according to destinations pre-programmed on passengers' mobile phones.

The lightweight vehicles have no steering wheel, brakes or accelerators, but do feature an emergency stop button.

They can reach speeds of up to 40km/h and are programmed to come to an automatic halt if unable to read road conditions.

Source: New York Post
Author: Chloe Ross, Approving editor: Simon Black