Google's Prototype Self-Driving Cars Coming to Austin for Testing

[Recursion]

http://www.siliconhillsnews.com/2015/08/30/googles-prototype-self-driving-cars-coming-to-austin-for-testing/

Austin is the first city outside of Google’s hometown of Mountain View where it is testing its self-driving car technology. For the past two months, Google has been testing its self-driving Lexus RX450h SUVs in Austin. But those cars have been adapted to handle Google’s equipment. The prototype cars are specially designed and built by Google partners as autonomous vehicles.

On Saturday, Mayor Steve Adler joined Chris Urmson, director of Google Self-Driving Car Project, Jennifer Haroon, the project’s head of business operations and Troy Livingston, CEO of The Thinkery, at a press conference at the Thinkery to introduce Google’s prototype cars to Austin. Google had one on display inside the Thinkery Children’s Museum.

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The problem Google is trying to tackle is huge. In the U.S., 33,000 people die on the road every year. That’s the equivalent of one 737 plane crashing every day, said Urmson, director of the Google Self-Driving Car Project. Google’s self-driving cars are the answer to eliminating most of those tragic accidents, Urmson said.

Google’s sensors onboard the self-driving cars remove blind spots and they can detect objects out a distance of more than two football fields in all directions, Urmson said. That’s particularly helpful at busy intersections, he said. Google’s prototype cars can only go up to 25 miles per hour and have all kinds of built-in safety features, he said.

[kentauros]

1. "Google’s prototype cars can only go up to 25 miles per hour"

Well, that won't be all that different from my observations of how most Lexus drivers operate their motor vehicles