This article details an interesting and funny incident that happened in California yesterday, in which a Google self-driving vehicle was pulled over by police for “driving too slowly” and causing a traffic backlog.

Since Google began developing the self-driving car six years ago, I have always had great faith in it despite how unreal it seemed. In the past, Google has always had success in bringing sustaining innovation to the public, and given enough time (and funding), I would not be surprised if they eventually revolutionize the transportation market.

Google’s self-driving car would no doubt be a disruptive innovation; specifically, it would cause a technical disruption in the car market that perhaps would eventually render human-driven cars obsolete. Having a car drive itself comes with many advantages. A robot cannot drink and drive, nor fall asleep at the wheel. As long as the rider is sober enough to slam the brakes if the AI malfunctions, the car will be much safer than a human-driven vehicle.

Furthermore, from a marketing point of view, Google’s self-driving car will open up new customer segments as it makes city road travel accessible and convenient for everyone. Young students will no longer stress over not being able to parallel park, and society’s senior citizens will be able to tour the city from the comfort of their own vehicle like they did when they were young. This car will solve some major pains in transportation that people have today.

The road to creating revolutionary inventions is often rocky, and takes so much effort and funding. From yesterday’s humorous incident, it’s plain that the self-driving car is not quite marketable yet. However, incident does not make me lose any faith. Rather, I commend Google for continuing investing more time and money to research this project that has so much potential.