Soon you will see the Google self-driving cars on the road. These two-seaters are ready to get off the test track and onto an actual road this summer. According to Chris Ursmon, Director of Google Self-Driving Car Project, people will see them cruising the streets of Mountain View, California.
The self-driving car prototype was unveiled in May 2014. It is packed with sensors. And – it has no steering wheel, accelerator or brakes. As far as managing anything in this self-controlling vehicle, passengers will have little more than a big stop button for emergencies.
The actual cars that will test drive themselves on California’s public roads will have removable accelerator and brake pedals, as well as a steering wheel, and they’ll have Google’s safety drivers aboard. The cars be capped at a maximum speed of 25 mph.
The new cars will have the same software as the Google’s fleet of self-driving Lexus RX450h SUVs, which logged a million autonomous miles on the road.
“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,” Ursmon wrote in his blog update.
Google says it plans to have driverless cars ready for production by 2020. Did we mention these cars can change shape and actually drive sideways?
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