SAN FRANCISCO, United States
Google said Friday that it will begin testing its compact self-driving car prototypes this summer.
The announcement comes almost a year after the company first revealed it was designing autonomous automobiles.
Google is calling the pod-like vehicle "the world’s first fully self-driving vehicle", according to a blog post published Friday by Chris Urmson, the director of the tech giant’s self-driving car project. While Google has tested self-driving software in different vehicles, the new prototypes -- built by automobile supplier Roush Industries -- are fully designed to be driverless.
In the coming months, Google’s 25 prototypes will leave the test tracks and drive on the public roads surrounding its hometown of Mountain View, California.
The new prototypes, which include design innovations like flexible windshields for pedestrian protection, use the same software that powers Google’s collection of Lexus RX450h SUVs, now with years of experience.
"That fleet has logged nearly a million autonomous miles on the roads since we started the project, and recently has been self-driving about 10,000 miles a week," Urmson claimed. "So the new prototypes already have lots of experience to draw on -- in fact, it’s the equivalent of about 75 years of typical American adult driving experience."
Google is focused on safety with the new tiny prototypes, which are stripped of the comforts of most vehicles. The cars’ speed will be limited to 40 kilometers per hour (25 miles per hour), for example.
"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," Urmson continued.
But the prototypes will include a steering wheel and brake pedal -- features not needed by computers that Google claimed would not be found in the prototypes when they unveiled the cars last May.
The cars rolling out this summer will include such features in case the human tester riding inside needs to take over.
