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Google unwraps self-driving car

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 23 Dec 2014
Google will spend the holidays "zipping around our test track" in its self-driving car.
Google will spend the holidays "zipping around our test track" in its self-driving car.

Google, the world's biggest search engine, has unveiled the first real build of its self-driving vehicle prototype.

Making the announcement on its blog, the company says "today we're unwrapping the best holiday gift we could've imagined."

The car follows a vehicle it launched in May, which was an early mockup, says Google, noting that car did not even have real headlights.

Since May, it has been working on different prototypes-of-prototypes, each designed to test different systems of a self-driving car-for example, the typical car parts like steering and braking, as well as the self-driving parts like the computer and sensors.

"We've now put all those systems together in this fully functional vehicle-our first complete prototype for fully autonomous driving."

Google says it will spend the holidays "zipping around our test track, and we hope to see you on the streets of Northern California in the new year".

Its safety drivers will continue to oversee the vehicle for a while longer, using temporary manual controls as needed while it continues to test and learn, it says.

Growing trend

In October, Gartner said, over the next six years, self-aware vehicles will emerge that are increasingly able to autonomously sense, interpret, decide, act and communicate with other automobiles, infrastructures, businesses, people and organisations. It noted, by 2025, vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication will be available in about 30% of passenger vehicles in use in mature markets, which will increase the reliability and accelerate the rollout of autonomous vehicles.

By 2030, autonomous-driving-capable vehicles will represent around a quarter of the passenger vehicle population in use in mature markets, the research company said. Several companies, including Google, have been demonstrating self-driving cars. Among others also in the race are Mercedes Benz and Nissan.

However, autonomous and driverless vehicles still have many obstacles to overcome before they meet all consumer, industry and legal requirements, said Gartner. Despite such challenges, the societal benefits from autonomous vehicles could outweigh potential disadvantages and concerns, it notes.

It predicted that, by 2016, three companies will have announced concrete plans for upcoming automobile launches that will offer autonomous vehicle technology.

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