Google doesn&#x27;t want to build cars.  Google wants to be the Microsoft of cars, to relegate the Fords and GMs of the world to hardware-builders akin to IBM.<p>It is a mistake to try.  As I&#x27;ve said in a hundred other threads, some basic autodrive functionality has been available for years and every focus group has dismissed it.  Speed regulators, automatic enforcement of follow distance, the automatic seatbelt (which only existed to delay the airbag requirement) anti-distraction devices such as entertainment systems that lock down at speed ... all would be trivial to implement but have been summarily rejected by the general market.  The concept that Google will somehow implement all of those things at once, and that people will buy in, seems fanciful.<p>I still haven&#x27;t seen any safety numbers that account for the most dangerous driving hazard.  I haven&#x27;t seen any evidence that drunk people crash less often in an auto-drive car.  All on the road so far have had driver overrides, which a drunk would of course be able to use.  Nobody has dared to put drunks in charge of these things.  So we do not know whether they will reduce drunk driving accidents or not.  It might perhaps increase the issue if lots of drunks decide to rely on autodrive cars, creating a greater opportunity for them to wrest control from the robot.<p>And I&#x27;ve yet to see the google cars react to unusual situations such as a person directing traffic or boarding a ferry.  Those driver overrides, which allow the drunk to take control, remain necessary.