Skip to Content

Why Alphabet Thinks Minivans Make Perfect Self-Driving Taxis

Electronic doors could be the killer feature for autonomous vehicles.
August 24, 2016

Alphabet raised some eyebrows when it announced recently that it had teamed up with Chrysler to create a fleet of 100 autonomous minivans. Cutting-edge robotics technology and cars seen by many as the dullest of all vehicles struck some people as a strange combination.

On Tuesday, a hardware engineer working on Alphabet’s project explained one reason why Fiat Pacifica minivans are a good fit—they have electronically closing doors. Daniel Rosenband told an audience at the Hot Chips semiconductor industry conference that they’re needed to provide the experience people expect of an autonomous taxi.

“We realized if you drop people off in a self-driving car they expect the car to do what it’s going to do—and that includes closing its door,” said Rosenband.

Alphabet will work with Fiat to modify 100 minivans like these to be capable of driving themselves.

An autonomous car without that feature might even get stranded if a passenger in a hurry ran off without closing the door. The vehicle would have to somehow call a human for help before it could drive off again.

The door problem illustrates how Alphabet and others hoping to create autonomous taxi fleets have a lot of design and user experience work to do. Today’s cars are designed with the assumption that they are fully controlled by humans. And it’s unclear what expectations people will have about the experience of a self-driving ride service.

Uber is also thinking about those challenges. Last week the company announced that some ride requests in Pittsburgh will be fulfilled by prototype self-driving cars (with safety drivers behind the wheel).

The experiment could provide Uber interesting data on how people feel about being ferried about by a self-driving vehicle. “The goal is to wean us off of having drivers in the car,” Uber’s engineering director told Bloomberg.

Uber won’t be able to give riders the experience Alphabet’s Rosenband says people expect of self-driving cars, though. The Volvo SUVs Uber is using rely on humans to close their doors.

(Read more: Bloomberg, “Prepare to be Underwhelmed by 2021’s Autonomous Cars”)

Keep Reading

Most Popular

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI

The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. 

The Biggest Questions: What is death?

New neuroscience is challenging our understanding of the dying process—bringing opportunities for the living.

Rogue superintelligence and merging with machines: Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist

An exclusive conversation with Ilya Sutskever on his fears for the future of AI and why they’ve made him change the focus of his life’s work.

How to fix the internet

If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.