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Google’s self-driving cars, a noticeable behavioral quirk that the Lexus exhibited was that it seemed to change lanes with emphasis, avoiding the gradual meandering from one lane to the next as a human driver might do. New York Times shares this story.
ince it created the project in 2009, Google has upgraded its fleet of cars from Priuses to Lexus S.U.V.s, and the navigational hardware, positioned in the vehicle trunk, is now more compact. Also, when the driver switches into autopilot, it no longer makes a neat, swooshing Star Trek sound effect. Rather, an anodyne female voice informs passengers that the car is now driving.
During the half-hour demonstration, part of a Google press briefing, the one noticeable behavioral quirk that the Lexus exhibited was that it seemed to change lanes with emphasis. There was no gradually meandering from one lane to the next as a human driver might. The Google Lexus was all business.
Otherwise, it obeyed the speed limit, alerted the driver that it was approaching a crosswalk, and kept a close eye on the cars, pedestrians and bicyclists that were in its vicinity — something that was conveniently displayed on the laptop computer held by the co-pilot, Nick Vanderpool, a member of the Google operations team who sat in the front passenger seat. Ryan Espinosa, a member of the Google Car operations team, sat in the driver’s seat, with his hands off the wheel.
Five years into its project to design a robot car capable of driving more safely than human drivers, Google held a press day Tuesday, giving a detailed overview of the state of the research effort, but giving few clues as to the company’s ultimate goal.
Google’s self-driving cars have now driven over 700,000 miles, mostly in California, but with forays into Nevada, Florida, Texas and the District of Columbia. The cars have not been in accidents while they were in self-driving mode. However, Dr. Urmson, the former Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist who is now head of the project, acknowledged that on several occasions the cars had been bumped while at stop lights.
In outlining the history of the car project since it was begun in 2009, Dr. Urmson noted that the company had originally set two goals: driving 100,000 miles safely and focusing on 10 particular routes, such as driving from San Jose to San Francisco along El Camino Real, a long road with many stop lights.