Infiniti Q50: Can it Drive Itself?

This car was driving on a highway in the United States, without the driver touching the steering wheel for many miles. This photo was found on autoblog.com.

This car was driving on a highway in the United States, without the driver touching the steering wheel for many miles. This photo was found on autoblog.com.

What a time to be alive! Soon we won’t even have to be driving ourselves anywhere, as  Infiniti has taken things into their own hands to create one of the first ever hands-free driving experiences. Check out your nearest Infiniti dealer to become apart of a revolution!

Many people don’t even know cars like this exist, though there are only a few currently. People are probably asking the question, “How is this possible?” The Infiniti uses a combination of radar and camera systems in order to stay in the proper lane and not drift. The car includes a technology that when the driver removes his or her hands off the wheel and feet off the pedals when moving at a speed of 45 miles per hour or faster. In past years, cars have been able to drive themselves for a few seconds without touching the wheel. But the Infiniti Q50 is using breakthrough technology to allow drivers and passengers to not touch the wheel for miles, according to Businessinsider.com.

Some of the Infiniti’s great features include cruise control to adapt to speed of cars, crash control which allows cars to stop or slow when crash are in front of them, according to usatoday.com.

They also added that this infinity is better suited for highway driving, not city driving with tight turns and congestion.

Kyle Bazemore, spokesperson for Infiniti said, “It’s fair to say some of these driving aids can look forward to autonomous driving, but they are here today to take the stress out of everyday driving.”

The car itself is said to have more technology than the latest $250,000 Bentley,” including cameras on each of the four corners of the car, and a camera to see where the car in front of you is to help judgement on accelerating and braking. And lastly, there is a pretty wild piece of technology which predicts whether the car that is two ahead will slam on the brakes!  There are some awesome features that gear this car towards greatness, but it is not quite there yet.

Infiniti’s have to compare up against other luxury brands like the Lexuses and BMW’s, so they certainly tried to raise the bar with this one. It includes a hybrid engine, which helps the environment obviously, but also makes the car faster. The makers want to persuade consumers of Lexuses and BMW’s to try the Q50, and we will wait and see if they have success.

We asked a student at West Morris Central, Sean Roehrich, how he would react if he saw a car driving itselfs with a person in the seat. He responded by saying “I would be freaking out dude!”

Most people as of now are probably too scared to try this, which is completely understandable. It might be a little early to trust a vehicle with our life on a road or highway, but this is just the start. The car only is able to be on auto pilot for miles, not extremely long distances.  So, for now, it is a little test run of self-driving vehicles

to see what needs to be changed or adjusted to improve it.