You will have heard, I am sure, of the Google driverless car. In fact, if you're a regular reader you will be thoroughly familiar with the vehicle if only because this columnist seems to be always going on about it. The justification for this obsession is that the success of the autonomous vehicle project should serve as a wake-up call to anyone who is complacent about the superiority of humans to machines.

That said, there was something oddly reassuring about the original driverless cars. For one thing, they were regular Toyota and Lexus saloons equipped with $250,000 worth of computers, sensors, lasers and associated kit. Secondly, they had steering wheels, gear shifts, brake pedals, rear-view mirrors and all the other appurtenances of a standard-issue car. A human "driver" could always take control simply by touching the steering wheel. So, in a way, you could think of it as just a standard vehicle with an autopilot.

There was, however, one slightly unsettling fly in the ointment. It was revealed that the fleet of Google cars had covered over half a million miles on busy Californian roads and that in all those journeys only one had ever been involved in a (minor) accident. It happened when one of the cars was actually been driven by a human. The implications of this might not have been obvious to everyone, but if the Google vehicles were ever to be let loose on public roads, then one industry in particular would sit up and pay attention – insurers. One could envisage the day when car owners would have to pay higher premiums if they wished to take the wheel themselves.

We now know that the implications of the driverless cars' safety record were not lost on Google either. Last week the company rolled out its latest variation on the autonomous vehicle theme. This is a two-seater, pod-like vehicle which scoots around on small wheels. It looks, in fact, like something out of the Enid Blyton Noddy stories. The promotional video shows a cheery group of baby-boomers summoning these mobile pods using smartphones. The pods whizz up obligingly and stop politely, waiting to be boarded. The folks get in, fasten their seatbelts and look around for steering wheel, gear shift, brake pedals etc.

And then we come to the punchline: none of these things exist on the pod! Instead there are two buttons, one marked "Start" and the other marked "Stop". There is also a horizontal computer screen which doubtless enables these brave new motorists to conduct Google searches while on the move. The implications are starkly clear: Google has decided that the safest things to do is to eliminate the human driver altogether.

At this point it would be only, er, human to bristle at the temerity of these geeks. Who do they think they are? Better, however, to calm down and try to guess at where this is heading.

Here's one way of looking at it. Google is, par excellence – and to a degree rarely seen in industry – an engineering company, and engineers dislike the untidy irrationality of real life. They look at our motorised world and see that we spend fortunes on the purchase, upkeep and operation of cars that are usually driven by a single human, spend a good deal of their time immobilised in urban congestion, and much of the rest of the time parked in streets. They see governments and local authorities driven to distraction, if not to bankruptcy, by the costs of providing roads and infrastructure to support our motoring habit. They see the mortality, environmental and health costs of human-controlled automobiles. And they think: this is nuts.

So, say Google's engineers, why don't we stop thinking of cars as possessions and start thinking of them as services? We all feel the need to own and operate our own cars because taxis are expensive, buses are unreliable and your car is available whenever you need it. But what if urban areas were flooded with Google's autonomous pods, each capable of being whistled up in an instant, using a smartphone which can detect the one nearest to you? It could pick you up and deliver you safely to your destination. And do so much more cheaply than any human-driven vehicle.

Wouldn't that be a more rational way of organising urban transportation?

Until recently, the question would have been moot. But Google's engineers have shown that it's technically feasible. They're throwing down a gauntlet to our political systems, and also to our own prejudices. Oh, and just in case you think that they don't know what they're doing, Google has a stake in Uber, the company that enables you to hail a nearby car by smartphone. Said cars are currently driven by humans, but… well, you get the point.