Part 23 - The time is Nigh

The time has come, the walrus said to speak of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.
But now the time has come for stars to shine, new days of wonder from afar,
Singapore has today, launched the first fully autonomous car.
A taxi, on the road, no driver, all alone, brave new world but a world of one,
The first of many, of things to come,
A start, a bright light, but at last......... the first one.
(Apologies to Lewis Carroll)

Time for celebration. I had no idea of what to put in a blog this week until I saw this article that Singapore is launching the first fully autonomous taxi service today.

It consist initially of six vehicles that can be called via a mobile phone app and is free service for selected users.
Admittedly it is only within a 2.5 square mile area within the One North business park but it is a start.
They plan to have 12 on the road by the end of the year and is a result of Singapores' autonomous vehicle initiative.

Singapores' government has been wanting to reduce the number of vehicles for quite some time and sees this as the ideal way to do it.
They are hoping to reduce the number of vehicles on the road significantly, and where an entire country is smaller than many cities, it is a very desirable aim.

There will be an engineer sitting in the drivers seat for some time as this is a testing phase, not a final release version and you do need to keep safety in the forefront.

The first autonomous taxi on the road, the beginning of a whole new world...


Due to personal commitments I may not be able to write a new blog for 3-4 weeks unless I get really lucky, but given past experience that's unlikely.

Talk soon......