WitStar self-driving car aims to prove safety with goldfish

The Guangzhou Auto WitStar self-driving concept car attempts to demonstrate its safety with an onboard fish tank. Because no one would endanger goldfish, right?

Guanzhou Auto WitStar
Car News China

We can almost see the logic: if you had any fear a car was going to crash, would you build a fish tank into the rear armrest?

This is how the Guanzhou Auto WitStar concept, which debuted at the 2013 Guangzhou Auto Show last month, is demonstrating its safety. The glass pod has 10 goldfish inside, and if the autonomous car were to crash, the tank would break and the goldfish would die.

Of course, we don't expect that to happen at all. Although, according to Car News China, manufacturer Guangzhou Auto did have an autonomous driving system all figured out, with cameras and computers that reconstruct a 3D image of the surrounding environment to map a route (pretty standard for self-driving cars), the model on display seemed to have been largely crafted of foam.

If the car did go to production, though, it would be fitted with an electric motor with a range of 62 miles and a petrol-powered range extender that adds 373 miles. The car would have a top speed of 99 miles per hour and would accelerate from 0 to 31 miles per hour in 4.5 seconds.

Guanzhou Auto WitStar
Because the car drives itself, the front two seats swivel around so that all passengers can enjoy the goldfish. Car News China

Google's self-driving car actually appears to be pretty safe. While we'd hesitate to assume that a smaller company tests its systems as rigorously as Google, we would suppose that there's actually a bigger danger to the onboard goldfish: you can't run the air conditioning non-stop. We imagine an hour parked in the hot sun would have dire consequences.

Read more about the Guangzhou Auto WitStar on Car News China.


(Source: CNET Australia)


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