Self-driving car trials move over to real road conditions as Google roll out driverless cars

by Benson Agoha | Technology

With the Royal Borough of Greenwich being an approved trial borough for self-driving cars, it may not be too long before we begin to see the likes of the Google Car on our roads.

The Google Self-driving Car.
(Credit: Google).

This is because Google has given the green light that its self-driving cars may be a reality far sooner than the public expect.

And Chris Urmson, Google's Director of the self-driving car project is excited to see the actual project has moved to something that is starting to come to being realise, saying the goal is to actually see people using it.

Releasing the video on youtube on Friday, Google said "We started designing the world’s first fully self-driving vehicle to transform mobility, making it easier, safer and more enjoyable for everyone to get around."

"Now we're ready for the next step of our project: this summer, our prototype vehicles will leave the test track and hit the familiar roads of Mountain View, California, with our safety drivers aboard.

And according to Google's System Engineer for the self driving car project, Jaime Waydo, google said "..every moment has been building towards putting these cars on the goad where we can even start learning more from them."

In a blog release on titled "Green lights for our self-driving vehicle prototypes", google said the auto-driving cars are being released unto the roads so that the 2023 target date will begin to feel real.

"We've made the car hard, we've made the car cold, we've durability testing, we've driven through reliability bump track." Waydo said.

Google said, it is also advisable for the car to leave their Californian trial base, where it has been confined, so that researchers can monitor its performance on the roads, in the real world.

Urmson said the car they rolled out in December had everything integrated into it, making it their first real push to making the car usable in real conditions.

He said getting the cars out will allow people to react to them and for google engineers to keep watch and monitor it's performance - at junctions, when people cross the road, or traffic lights and so on. "Most importantly, it is a necessary step to get them to try it themselves". 

"When we think about safety, when we think about giving people mobility, and when you start to think in longer term about the impact on cities, and reliability and reclaimed space, and to reduce congestion and freer parking - this is something that will have a huge impact."

See this video: