Google cars make steady progress International Business
California: Google’s self-driving vehicles are mastering complex situations on public roads, from cars going the wrong way to bicycles darting in front of traffic, as the technology company strives to win the high-profile race to achieve full vehicle automation, executives said yesterday.
The Alphabet unit, which has been developing autonomous cars since 2009, said its self-driving vehicles had logged 3.2 million km on public roads, and it continues to log about 40,230km of test drives per week.
Google has been a leader in testing autonomous vehicles on public roads, prompting traditional carmakers to step up their self-driving plans to avoid being eclipsed by the tech leader, which has yet to disclose a business strategy for its car project.
The Silicon Valley-based company is focused on making cars fully autonomous, with no need for a driver, which could make driving safer and more efficient and open up transportation to the disabled and aged. It said last year that such cars would be ready for production by 2020.
Its approach stands in sharp contrast to many carmakers, including Toyota Motor and Tesla Motors, which are moving towards autonomous driving in incremental steps, currently still requiring drivers.
Tesla has said it logged more than 160,934,400km since last October from drivers using its partially autonomous Autopilot system.
But miles driven on predictable highways are easier than navigating busy city streets, said Dmitri Dolgov, head of Google’s self-driving technology effort. “Google’s cars experience more complex situations than just following a car on the freeway.”
The Google car can detect whether a moving object is a child or a bicycle and anticipates that both can make fast, unpredictable movements.
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