Smart Cars
Michio Kaku
话题演讲
https://open.163.com/newview/movie/free?mid=MBBL9CG33&pid=MBBL91A3O
Task : From the lecture we learn that smart cars are different from traditional cars mainly in the following three different ways:
1. Driver assistance systems of traditional cars are probably______________
2. A self-driving system of smart cars is probably _________________________
3. Self-driving systems of smart cars can be _____________________________
Lead-in
Listening Task
What will cars look like in the future? Could you imagine a car driving itself? What would the driver do in a self-driven car? Listen to the recording to see what's happening to the car and what benefits these changes will bring.
We're going to see more and more automation as time goes on. Making a car that goes more than 100 km/h isn't a huge engineering problem — but human drivers can't respond fast enough to make those speeds safe.
Personally, I'm all in favor of letting the car drive itself. I'd much rather trust my life to the efforts of engineers and programmers than the angry, sleepy, distracted, incompetent, drunken people who are behind a lot of wheels now.
It's often been said that anyone could have predicted the automobile, but only a science-fiction writer could have predicted the traffic jam. Well, here I am predicting the end of traffic jams: computer-controlled cars won't get in each other's way, and they won't slow down as their drivers gaze at accidents — in part because there will be many fewer accidents, and in part because the passengers in the car will be able to get a decent look without the car going at a slower speed.
There really are a lot of pluses to the self-driving car: you can sleep, drink, read, watch TV, do work — whatever you want — while getting safely and efficiently to your destination. For my money, we can't make the transition soon enough. "Road rage" will be a thing of the past; there's no reason driving should be frustrating, or why car accidents should be the leading cause of death of men under the age of 25.
Still, there will be a desire to get out on the open highway and just drive — people do enjoy that, and it won't entirely disappear. But in the future when we talk about hybrid cars we'll mean cars that can be both self-driven and controlled by a driver; the terms "manual" and "automatic" won't refer to transmissions but the totality of operating the vehicle.
So, yeah, you can get out on the highway when the mood strikes you — but most of the other vehicles will still be driving themselves.
