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Google robot car does 225,000km by itself

By Brett Davis |

Mulit-billion-dollar international technology company, Google, has been secretly working away on developing robotic cars capable of driving themselves.

Up until now it’s all been a bit of a secret, but Google has begun releasing information to the public about what the company has been up to in the last year or so and where it’s currently at.

In a recent blog on its blog site, Google has revealed it has not only begun to forge the way in robotic car development, it’s already driven a small fleet of automated Toyota Prius’ around parts of California for a total of 225,000km on public roads. The interesting thing is most of us weren’t even aware it was happening.

Here we have a video which was added on YouTube at the beginning of this year. The author initially stated it was a Google car being used for Google images, but then it was edited to say the car is in fact a completely robotic vehicle, manned by technicians.

Although the car in the video appears to be driven by someone, he is simply there for safety reasons and is not actually inputting to the driving. Sebastian Thrun, Distinguished Software Engineer for Google, said in the recent Googleblog post,

“Our cars are never unmanned. We always have a trained safety driver behind the wheel who can take over as easily as one disengages cruise control.”

The blog says that originally, Google was developed to help people ‘solve really big problems using technology’. And that one of the problems the company is now focusing on is traffic and road safety.

“Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use,” Thrun said.

Google hasn’t announced when or how this technology will be applied to the real world yet, but says it is testing potentials. Thrun said,

“While this project is very much in the experimental stage, it provides a glimpse of what transportation might look like in the future thanks to advanced computer science.”

The company hopes automated cars could be developed to establish ‘highway trains of tomorrow’ and transport commuters safely, and provide road-goers with more time to get onto other things whilst traveling.

Google also says that this technology has the potential to cut road-related fatalities by as much as half if it were applied to the infrastructure.

It’s still only early stages yet, but we’ll be sure to keep you up to date on Google’s movements in the near future.


 

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  • sandy stone

    At our nursing home some of the prius and camry owners drive like robots anyway , dont see why this is news

  • gearboxdawg

    Almost a drone but still need a human operator to keep an eye on things.

  • Andrew M

    I saw one of these here on the gateway a while back, I too assumed it must have been for mapping, but this doesnt surprise me, very cheeky.

    Are they actually allowed to do this without permission??

    • Smithy

      “I too assumed it must have been for mapping..”

      Yes it is. “IF” Google are in fact doing this. it’s probably only in the states.

  • http://www.facebook.com/peter.zaharis Labrys

    This is officially the first step in Google becoming Skynet.
    Be afraid people.
    Be very afraid.

    • Eric

      Don’t worry J.C. will save us.

      Eric

      • j

        For irony, it’s probably powered by their Android OS.

        We are so doomed.

        • Thorne

          Worry about the M$ version

          “Your car has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down” NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

  • rose

    Its easy now to call it “advancing technology” as it isnt google jobs at stake when people no longer drive/pilot vehicles for commercial use.

    And yes, and brother is watching, and he is paid by google to ruin other peoples future in order for a pay rise. And we thought it would be armies that end the world…nope…it’ll be the type of people that play dungeons and dragons and invent hand signals…sweet

  • Mike

    So, fleets of unmanned google drones mapping/photographing our roads day & night? Or simply a way to free up the driver for more internet browsing & hence ad revenue for google?

  • Shak

    Hello Skynet!

  • svd

    When you can’t find your car in the shopping centre carpark you can Google it.

    • stuzz

      or direct it to come to you…..

  • Brad

    I like ‘driving’ my cars more than most (just like any other enthusiast who’d visit this page and leave a post).

    But I can see this becoming the norm eventually. I’ll miss controlling the car myself, but the benefits are amazing. Of course road safety etc (btw NO road deaths should be achievable, not just halve them), but imagine what you could do with your travel time if you didn’t have to drive, read, watch tv, enjoy the view/journey, no stress transport, no more traffic jams, spend time with the family (eek)….

    • Thorne

      It won’t reduce road death to nothing unless stupid pedrestians are fitted with Google mind control helmets….

      Now there’s an idea!

  • JML

    I hope this never becomes the norm in my lifetime. I enjoy my driving too much to have google do it for me. I also know they will log every detail of my travel habits and purchases so that they can pump focused advertising into the car while I’m a helpless passenger.

  • Gen – What For

    V cool carn’t wait for the day we can surf the net by plugging a USB cable into the back of our heads.
    And microchips Cool,won’t it be a great to have all your details stored by the goverment so we don’t have to worrie about all that stuff.
    I just got a new IPhone,its one of my best friends,along with my IPad and IPod.
    I just had a swine flu shot,to protect me from the global pandemic and iv’e got toothpaste with 10x the fluride to stop tooth decay.
    Whats this skynet stuff you guys are saying,sounds like fun.
    One more thing EVERYBODY should buy a prius to help save the planet as we are killing it.

    • Gen – not sure

      Um… sarcasm doesn’t work well when written. Not without some very obvious indications.

  • Jack

    Makes one appreciate wind up windows, bench seats, no power assistance, carburettors, high beam lights on the floor, vinyl, manually adjusting the timing, and quarter vent windows in a new light.

    Ah, I miss the mechanical age…

    (If these things get a virus, do we have more freeway crashes?)

  • Hendrik

    Would be a fitting replacement for the drivers in the V8SC.