媒體英語(yǔ)會(huì)帶大家一起學(xué)習(xí) BBC 撰稿人在報(bào)道世界大事時(shí)常用到的單詞和短語(yǔ)。

看樣子無(wú)人駕駛汽車(chē)的未來(lái)發(fā)展道路清晰可見(jiàn)。谷哥將開(kāi)始制造自己最新研制的無(wú)人駕駛汽車(chē)，而不是改造其它生產(chǎn)商的車(chē)輛。谷哥制造的無(wú)人自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)只配有“啟動(dòng)”和“停止”兩個(gè)按鈕，除此之外，沒(méi)有其它任何控制。以下是Theo Leggett 的報(bào)道。

Google's driverless car project was officially launched in 2010. Since then it says its test vehicles have completed more than a million kilometres on public roads. They progressed from relatively simple driving on the Californian freeway to more complicated manoeuvring in urban areas.

So far, Google has used a fleet of ordinary cars which have been converted to carry self-driving technology. But now it wants to take the process a stage further by producing a purpose-built machine. It’s planning to create a fleet of about a hundred fully autonomous electric vehicles capable of carrying two people at up to 40 km per hour without any input from a human driver.

The ultimate aim is to get rid of the controls altogether, although early versions will still need to have a steering wheel and pedals.

Google believes it will be able to launch a pilot scheme using the new cars within the next two years. But the internet giant is far from being the only company working on self-driving technology. A number of major manufacturers have their own test programmes, among them Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen and BMW.