Washington: Imagine this. You’re on the driver’s seat of your car, munching away on your favourite burger and washing it down with your favourite milkshake. Hands free, basically. You say right, your car goes right. You say left, so left. How wonderful it would be if your car can drive itself to your destination!
The world is one step closer to the day when people can drive to work while sipping coffee, texting with a friend and working on a laptop computer.
Google is set to release its self-driving car on public roads this summer.
Google announced that this summer, several prototype versions of its self-driving cars are set to hit the streets of Mountain View, California – the search giant’s hometown. The move is still in another round of testing, but it is a significant step toward a pilot program, in which, regular consumers could ride in self-driving cars.
The prototypes, which will have safety drivers and a 25mph cap, will be running the same software as used by Google’s self-driving Lexus RX450h fleet, the basis of the company’s research before it announced an entirely original car.
Project director Chris Urmson in a blog post said unlike Google’s ultimate vision for the vehicles, these cars will come with a removable steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake pedal.
Google said the fleet has logged “about 75 years of typical American adult driving experience.” Urmson said they are looking forward to the response and would like to run small pilot programs with the prototypes to learn what people would like to do with such vehicles.
Earlier, it was reported that the cars have been involved in 11 accidents so far, but the company alleged that the wheels weren’t at fault.