Affordable Self Driving Cars Within Three Years?

Mobileye technology in use (from Youtube)

An article in popsci magazine based on a report in the New York Times suggests that affordable self-drive cars will be commonplace within three years.   The Google self-drive car is the one that has made all the news but it is expensive. Now another company, Isreal-based Mobileye Vision Technologies is developing a similar car but for less.

Mobileye is responsible for the intelligent autopilot in cars today such as Volvo's bicyclist-avoiding system. The mobileye system uses video cameras instead of the much more expensive Google technology lidar. A system due out  later this year will be able to take control during stop-and-go traffic.

Times reporter John Markoff said that compared to the Google car the prototype self-driving system from Mobileye seemed more limited and less trustworthy but more likely to be the technology taken up by car owners in the next few years.