14 DAY TRIAL // The idea that there would be issues with trying to test out the driverless cars did come up to Google while creating them. California DMV said they wouldn’t be allowed to test them unless they have manual controls and a backup driver on board.
In a Google+ post, the company reveals that its latest prototypes have been tinkered with to accommodate a temporary steering wheel and controls. This means that, once the testing phase is done, they’ll be able to easily remove the steering wheel and whatever else manual controls that were added.
Until the cars are ready for mass production, Google will continue testing the results of the work done by the engineers from its X Labs. The temporary steering wheel and set of controls are there to keep test drivers safe until everything is up to par, but Google is pretty confident about the abilities of their little cars.
Google says that some of the prototype testing will take place at Moffett Field, where NASA’s Ames Research Center is located. Here, however, there will be no restrictions regarding the way the cars are equipped. This means that Google is testing them just as they intended them to be – with no steering wheel, pedals, mirrors and other things that you’re used to in a regular car.
“You can think of the process of creating a self-driving vehicle in three stages. First we have to build the basic structural and mechanical functions of the vehicle, like the drivetrain and the chassis — the parts that make it move. Then we get to where we're at now, where we add the ‘self-driving’ features — the sensors and software — and optimize how they interact with the vehicle. In the last stage of development, we will add all the finishes, like a final paint job and interior buttons, that complete a ‘real’ vehicle you’d want to ride in,” Google writes in the post.
Veteran driverless cars testers are now working on the prototypes
The company says that its drivers who have been working on Lexus vehicles, adjusting the algorithms and making the systems as good as possible, have now moved on to private facilities where they’re providing feedback on the performance of the newest prototypes that are in early-stage development.
The facilities where the cars are being tested have been modified to include various terrains, traffic lights, constructions zones and even wobbling cyclists.
The Google cars were introduced a few months back. While the fact that the company was working on self-driving cars was no secret, since the company had been running tests on modified vehicles, the fact that Google had gone ahead and built its own prototype was quite surprising.