A free taxi to the shops, courtesy of Google

New technology from Google will allow restaurants, shopping malls and garages to offer free taxi rides to their customers.

A patent awarded to the internet giant reveals how the company plans to use advertising revenue to fund free local travel – possibly using its own fleet of self-driving taxis .

How will the free Google taxi work?

In the way that banks offer ‘free’ car breakdown cover to encourage the take up of paid-for current accounts, the Google taxi service will allow local businesses to pay for customers to be driven to their premises. When a web user is searching for a restaurant, Google will display a special offer from a local eatery that includes a free taxi ride to get there using one of the fully autonomous self-driving cars it is developing.

Google has already successfully demonstrated its driver-less car and recently launched the Open Automotive Alliance to speed its introduction.

Self-driving cars

Following the adoption of self-driving vehicles, it is likely that we will very quickly move away from what we currently consider to be a car.

The American industrial design firm that worked on the Google phone has unveiled its own vision of personal transport in 2040. The vehicle imagined by Mike and Maaike features a wrap-around seven-seat sofa, table and large television.

According to the designers, self-driving cars are not only technologically possible, but inevitable.

GPS, sophisticated sensors and navigation databases will allow such vehicles to operate on the same roads we have today.