15 STORYBYETHANBARON

This year, several events in SiliconValley made it clear: Revolutions intransportation are upon us. And huge transformations in the way we get from place to place are arriving sooner than manyimagined.

If all goes according to plans hatched by Silicon Valleytech firms, within the next several years we’llbe traveling in cars driven by software, without a human backup. Greenenergy will power our movement. And we may even break freefrom the Bay Areatrafficthat binds —up, up we’llgo,inflying cars.

Tesla is taking an incremental approach on the way to full autonomy,with systems that can steer and brake for the user and are now on the market. But in Maythe perils of that method were revealed when a man drove into a truck and died while relying on theTesla Model S “autopilot”system.

Amonth earlier,Tesla expanded its lineup when it unveiled its $35,000 electricModel 3; it expects to start shipping the zeroemissions vehicles next year.

InOctober,Google announced that its self-driving carshadsurpassed 2 million miles of roadway testing. But the Mountain View company’sgoal — complete autonomy,without possibilityof human intervention — means other firms are getting self-driving technologyinto the hands of consumers first.

Also entering the autonomousvehicle fraywas San Francisco ride-hailing giant Uber,which in September launched a pilot program of self-driving taxis in Pittsburgh. The cars are fully autonomous, but havebackup drivers.

Meanwhile, Uber rival Lyft expanded its“Lyft Line”carpooling service,which started inSan Francisco in 2014, to 15 U.S. areas, including Silicon Valley.Google’s Wazealso launched a BayArea carpool service.

But perhaps the most surprising storywas the discovery of the unusual,electricvehicle now under developmentby Zee.Aero, reportedly funded byGoogle cofounderLarryPage.Spotted hovering at the Hollister Airportover the summer,Zee.Aero’sproduct is a “flying car” thattakes offand lands vertically.

EBARON@BAYAREANEWSGROUP.COM