Google’s “moonshot” autonomous car project (which, like Google Glass, originated in the secretive Google X lab) started in 2009, and has come a long way in five years. The vehicles have driven over 700,000 autonomous miles, and have mastered staying in a lane and maintaining speed on the highway. Now, with freeway travel under the car’s belt, researchers are addressing the complexities of driving on a city street.
Having a self-driving car on the market is still about six years away according to the Google team, so there is still time to hash out these issues. They will also, in that time, have to get more roads mapped, bring down costs, configure designs to be more consumer friendly, address privacy and security questions, and solve the weather-related problems the car still displays. It’s a long checklist, and it’s one that Google will have to figure out quickly or risk losing their lead in the robot car race. Car manufacturers, like General Motors, Ford, Tesla, Volvo, Nissan, BMW, and Audi are all developing self-driving tech. Each manufacturer is customizing software to fit their brand, and are looking at the same 2020 release as Google. See more at:
