Google has been working on self driving cars for more than four years. The tech giant is now announcing that it will begin testing these self driving cars on public roads in California starting this summer.
Google unveiled the self driving car prototype without steering wheel and brake last year in May. The company said that the prototype vehicles will have safety drivers present and will have a capped speed of 25mph. The prototypes will be running the same software as used by Google’s self-driving Lexus RX450h fleet. Google said its fleet has logged nearly a million miles of cumulative driving within its test facilities and that the program has ramped up to around 10,000 miles per week.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCezICQNgJU
“We’re looking forward to learning how the community perceives and interacts with the vehicles, and to uncovering challenges that are unique to a fully self-driving vehicle—e.g., where it should stop if it can’t stop at its exact destination due to construction or congestion. In the coming years, we’d like to run small pilot programs with our prototypes to learn what people would like to do with vehicles like this.”
posted Google in a company blog.
Google said that the prototype car will also have removable steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake pedal that allow them to take driving if needed.