GOLF CAR NEWS
Driver-less Golf Carts to be Tested in Coronado Starting in May www . coronadotimes . com 4 / 1 / 2018
Uber , Waymo and Alphabet ( formerly Google ) are the top companies ‘ racing ’ to dominate the driver-less car revolution that will be part of our everyday life in the near future . So far , these companies have been testing cars in both rural and urban cities to gather data for improvements and in order to prove their safety and to pass rigid government requirements .
While these companies are not yet testing their vehicles in Coronado , there is a small local startup called AutoNado-4-1 that will be testing autonomous golf carts starting this May on the streets of Coronado .
AutoNado-4-1 is owned by Arizona millionaire Lirpa Sloof , a successful entrepreneur that made her fortune selling cocktail drink umbrellas in the 1980s and then investing heavily in Coronado real estate . In the 1988 movie Cocktails , starring Tom Cruise and Elizabeth Shue , Sloof ’ s flagship pink umbrella product had a brief cameo .
The driver-less golf carts will be pink ( with a small umbrella print – see image above ) in an effort to be clearly seen by people-driven vehicles , bicyclists , and pedestrians . Mayor Richard Bailey gapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology ( SMART ), but Sloof is adamant that her company ’ s technology is much more advanced and safer . Sloof shared , “ Look , you don ’ t build a multi-million-dollar drink umbrella company without knowing a little bit about technology and safety . Creating driver-less golf carts isn ’ t rocket science and we are talking ‘ Coronado ’ – one of the safest communities on the planet with plenty of wide residential streets to test on – I expect zero issues – in fact , we ’ ll make Coronado even safer with our self-driving golf carts ."
Coronado already has hundreds of golf carts on the “ island ”, however , they all require drivers paying attention to actually driving them . This means that today ’ s Coronado golf cart driver can ’ t enjoy their Instagram , Snapchat , lattes , or even catching up with a quick snooze as they drive around the “ Village ”.
“ It would literally change our lives ! I could just program it to take the kids to soccer practice by themselves or I could catch up on email without the hassle of actually being focused on driving . Not to mention , I spoke with a Wag ’ N Tails employee about having our ‘ robot ’ golf cart drop Nibbles ( our labradoodle ) at their store on Orange Avenue for a shampoo , and they said that they could easily extract Nibbles from the golf cart and then place her in it again when her grooming was completed . I can ’ t wait !”
Initial costs of a four-passenger driver-less golf cart will be $ 41,201.80 .
Coronado ’ s Mayor Bailey commented , “ This driver-less technology represents the future of transportation and it is important for Coronado to be on the cutting edge of innovation .”
The AutoNado-4-1 automation components are similar to Sin-