14 DAY TRIAL // Google is full of surprises nowadays, and it looks like its self-driving cars have been moved up a notch.
It’s not exactly a secret that Google X has been working on cars that can drive themselves around town with no input from the passengers aside from setting up a destination, but what Google hasn’t exactly shared with the world until now is that they’ve been busy creating their own cars from scratch.
That means the Prius and Lexus cars that Google has been working with so far are a thing of the past, leaving room for exactly what the Internet giant envisions when it comes to the future of driving.
Why did Google go to all the trouble of building its own cars from the ground up? Well, that’s simple… it wanted more than it could get from the previous models. It lacks a steering wheel, an accelerator and a brake pedal; it doesn’t even have mirrors, a backseat, a glove compartment or a stereo.
Instead, it has a lot of sensors that map the world around the car, enabling it to calculate what’s going to happen, to avoid collisions and to increase road safety. Compared to the retrofitted self-driving Lexus, which comes with a mounted laser that has a 12-degree field of view, the prototype cars have lasers with a full 360-degree views.
“It’s going from looking just in front, like a flashlight, to a lantern all around the car,” said Chris Urmson, project director for the self-driving car project.
So far, the prototypes can only drive around 25 miles an hour, which is a safety measure since there would be less power to an impact at this speed. The cars also have two feet of foam on the front and have plastic instead of glass for windshields, which should protect passengers more in case an accident eventually happened.
While Google has dropped a lot of extra features, it has built in some redundant ones. For instance, there are two sets of steering and braking systems. In case one fails, the other can take over and keep you safe on the road.
Google plans to build about 100-200 prototypes, but it’s mostly hoping for some auto maker to come forward and decide it wants to build them for Google.
“What I’m excited about is how we could change transportation today. If you look at people who are too old, too young, or disabled, and can’t get around, that’s a big challenge for them,” Google’s Sergey Brin said.
The cars look cute, but they’re merely prototypes at this point, so the look could change.