Google Self-Driving Car

Manufacturer - Google
Type - Self-Driving

Google make known a brand new self-driving car prototype on Tuesday. The first company to build a car with no a steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedal.

It is the first genuinely driverless electric car prototype built by Google to test the next stage of its five-year-old self-driving car project. Unlike previous models, these cars won't have human drivers keep track of them at all times. Google said the cars can detect objects up to 200 yards away in all directions and adjust their speed, turns and braking accordingly. The cars' speed for now has been exceed at 25 mph, allowing engineers to minimise the risk of crashes during testing. It operates in and around California, primarily around the Mountain View area where Google has its headquarters. 

It ferries two people from one place to another without any user interaction. The car is summoned by a smartphone for pick up at the user’s location with the destination set. There is no steering wheel or manual control, simply a start button and a big red emergency stop button. In front of the passengers there is a small screen showing the weather, the current speed and a small countdown animation to launch. Once the journey is done, the small screen displays a message to remind you to take your personal belongings – reinforcing that this is not aiming to be a substitute for your personal car at the moment, but more as a replacement for the taxi without the human driver.

It is powered by an electric motor with around a 100 mile range, the car uses a combination of sensors and software to locate itself in the real world combined with highly accurate digital maps. A GPS is used, just like the satellite navigation systems in most cars, to get a rough location of the car, at which point radar, lasers and cameras take over to monitor the world around the car, 360-degrees. The software can recognise objects, people, cars, road marking, signs and traffic lights, obeying the rules of the road and allowing for multiple unpredictable hazards, including cyclists. It can even detect road works and safely navigate around them.

One of the biggest hold-ups to the improvement of the technology onto the open road of Britain, the US, Australia and the rest of the world will be legislation. Google says the cars should be road-ready by early next year, but that testing would take more than two years. At that point the technology will be ready for the next stage, which is likely to be greater pilot testing. Current expectations are that these self-driving cars are at least five years away from being mature enough to create a real, non-prototype product, but it may be far longer until you can buy or hire one for personal use.