Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car-And How It Will Reshape Our World
About this audiobook
A deep dive into the race to develop and perfect the driverless car—an innovation that promises to be the most disruptive change to our way of life since the smartphone—by a veteran insider of the automotive and tech worlds
In Autonomy, former GM executive and current advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car project Lawrence Burns offers a sweeping history of the race to make the driverless car a reality. In the past decade, Silicon Valley companies like Google, Tesla and Uber have positioned themselves to revolutionize the way we move around by developing driverless vehicles while traditional auto companies like General Motors, Ford, and Daimler have been fighting back by partnering by with new tech start-ups. It’s not a question of whether the self-driving car will disrupt the automobile industry; it’s a question of when, how, and who will win the race.
With the first driverless car likely to hit markets in less than five years, Burns also looks toward the future and explains how this new technology will impact our lives—from removing the hassles of driving, parking, and refueling our cars, to eliminating 90 percent of road fatalities, drastically reducing our carbon footprint, and automating yet another segment of blue collar industries, putting more workers out of their jobs.
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.
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About the author
Lawrence D. Burns served as corporate vice president of research, development and planning at General Motors, where he oversaw GM’s advanced technology and innovation programs as well as corporate strategy. He was also a professor of engineering practice at the University of Michigan and led the Program for Sustainable Mobility at Columbia University. He has served as an adviser to the Google self-driving car project (now Waymo) since 2011 and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He lives in Franklin, Michigan.
Christopher Shulgan is a writer who specializes in collaborations with world-renowned experts. His eight books include the bestseller The One-Minute Workout: Science Shows a Way to Get Fit That’s Smarter, Faster, Shorter. He lives in Toronto.