Google's Self-Driving Car Headed For Public Roads

(RTTNews) - Internet giant Google Inc. (GOOG, GOOGL) said the company would roll out a handful of its prototype driver-less cars on public roads this summer. They will take to the streets of Mountain View, in the company's neighborhood.

In a post on the company's official blog, Chris Urmson, Director, Google Self-Driving Car Project, said, "We've been running the vehicles through rigorous testing at our test facilities, and ensuring our software and sensors work as they're supposed to on this new vehicle. The new prototypes will drive with the same software that our existing fleet of self-driving Lexus RX450h SUVs uses."

The robot-cars logged nearly a million autonomous miles on the roads since the project was begun, and recently they have been self-driving about 10,000 miles a week.

The self-driven cars on public roads will be supervised by safety drivers and the speed will be limited to 25 mph. The vehicles will be fitted with a removable steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake pedal so that the drivers can take over driving, if needed.

So far, these cars have been driven only on test tracks, some of which resemble highways and streets.

"We're looking forward to learning how the community perceives and interacts with the vehicles, and to uncovering challenges that are unique to a fully self-driving vehicle - e.g., where it should stop if it can't stop at its exact destination due to construction or congestion," Urmson added.

Google had said earlier this week that its self-driving vehicles were involved in 11 minor accidents in the past six years that they have test-driven. However, the vehicles were not to blame for the incidents that included light damage and no injuries, the company noted.

According to the company, most of the incidents occurred when the cars were hit from behind. Some of these were on the freeway while some were at traffic lights.

GOOGL rose 1.8 percent on Thursday to close at $549.20. Meanwhile, GOOG added 1.7 percent to settle at $538.40.