Emerging Technologies Blog

Image credit: Google

In December last year, Google took the wraps off its first fully functional self-driving car, complete with all the element such as brakes, Lidar, steering wheel etc. to drive on its own.From what Google said there are about 100 of them. It went further to say they would hit the streets of California this year .

Today the person overseeing  Google's self-driving car project, Chris Umson, announced in a blog post  that Google self-driving car prototype are ready to ply the roads of Mountain View, Calif, after months of rigorous testing at its testing facilities. The cars will drive with safety drivers on board(two people). The pod-like driverless vehicles will use the same software the company's fleet of Lexus RX450h SUVs use to drive.

Jessie Lorenz, of San Francisco, touches the new Google self-driving prototype car during a demonstration at the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif.

You will recall  Google said its Lexuses have logged almost 1 million autonomous miles and, drove 10,000 miles on their own recently. They had been involved in 11 accidents since Google started experimenting with the tech six years ago, which the tech titan argued were minor accidents(meaning not much damage or injuries). In fact it says the accidents were not caused by the car or the man in the driver's seat.Probably the fault of other road users.

The prototype driverless cars have removable steering wheels, accelerator pedal and brake pedal which the safety drivers could use to take over control of the car if need be--at least for safety. The vehicles will be required to keep to the rules by driving at 25 miles per hour.

Google say it wants to to learn how the community perceives and interacts with the vehicles, and to take into record 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.