A certain right wing talk show host in the US recently made a big fuss about he has bought an "EMP-proof" car. I guess that this means either pure diesel or spark plugs and points IC engine (he never did elaborate on what model it was) . However he made no reference to stockpiling fuel for the vehicle so I am apt to wonder what will happen in his post EMP world when everything else electronic around him will have died.

Supercapacitors

Given that super caps are currently being used in F1 racing (Tackling KERS in Formula One) I'd say that they are a little more advanced than "early lab stage". Although 10 years from F1 to commercial does seem reasonable.

I was equating a roundabout to turning right, not crossing an intersection.

Regardless what you call them a roundabout have multiple lanes of traffic. I have driven on roundabouts in the UK that are a good 1/4 mile in diameter with significant distances between on/off ramps. Do you consider that those roundabouts do not have a left and right lane?

When you change lanes on a freeway you are driving at an angle to the direction of travel - albeit very small.

When you cross lanes in a roundabout you are driving at an angle to the direction of travel - but at a much larger angle than in the freeway case.

In both case you are driving at an angle to the direction of travel. The topology is the same .. only the size of the angle differs.

And how is that different from any other form of driving? Why is it only in a roundabout that you are concerned about the car needing to read markings on the road?

Yes ..and on both left and right side driving countries.

The lane crossing in a roundabout is just a special case of lane changing in which time spent within the lane is minimized as you merge into or out of the roundabout. The fundamentals and topology are still the same.

Many locales have different rules in for driving in general. Such as passing on the right. A fully fledged autonomous car will have to take all of those differences into account. But this was a limited test in a limited locale for which google pre-mapped the route, and probably tuned the car so that it would behave accordingly to the situations it encountered.

As I said .. the topology (and I mean topology in its purest sense) is *exactly* the same for both roundabouts and freeway exits, the only difference is the scales of elements *within* that topology, such as how far from the exit you should consider moving from left to right hand lanes, and perhaps the "attraction" factor you should have for a particular lane. The fact that one object curves and that one is straight is irrelevant.

Are you saying that spinning laser pointer thingy on the roof of the google car is just there for show? That one that tracks the objects in the vicinity of the car, that is held up high so it can get a good view of its surroundings?

What is the point of this? Is it that its a left turn and left merge? Or that there are multiple lanes?

Which just means an extra lane change left and right. Your google car can change lanes can't it?

Because they're idiots and can't think outside of their small world view?

But those drivers don't just simply appear when in roundabouts, they are idiots all of the time, on all of the roads. How is the poor google car going to deal with people who have the right of way, yet stop and wave you through, even though you are the person facing the sign and they are facing nothing but open road?

So have I, and in splitting my time between countries that drive on the left and on the right I had to seriously question if the car that was coming at me was because it was my fault or his fault - which is not a good feeling when you just rented a fully restored '67 mustang convertible for the weekend

However, the cause of how people came to drive at an autonomous car is irrelevant, whether it be in a roundabout or just driving down the wrong side of the street - only the response is relevant and that should be the same in both of those situations. So I contend that if the car is safe to drive autonomously on a straight street (within googles limitations), it must also be safe to drive in a roundabout.