Greg Beato on Google's Driverless Future

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The Google self-driving cars, of which there are now a dozen or so, have the company's familiar, friendly logo plastered on their doors. Their roofs sport laser scanners rotating on spoilers so clunky they seem purpose-built to make the cars seem less technologically disruptive than they really are. "That thing?" you can't help but ask when you look at one. "That's the thing that's going to make Mothers Against Drunk Driving as pointless as a radiator in a Tesla factory?" Remember, however, what company we're talking about, writes Greg Beato. More than two dozen car manufacturers and other entities are currently at work on driverless automobiles. But it's Google that is piloting us toward the radical new transportation reality just around the bend.