Google first started testing driverless cars in public roads in Nevada after the Legislature passed a bill there in 2011.
The Texa capital of Austin will have two of Google's heavily modified Lexus RX450 hybrid SUVs trolling its streets, an effort to present the car's computer brains with a new set of traffic patterns and driving situations.
In the past six years, Google cars have been involved in more than a dozen accidents, but in each case the fault was with the humans in other cars. The last three accidents, all detailed in the company's new monthly reports on the projects, were caused by Google cars being rear-ended at stoplights by other motorists.
Two Google safety drivers spent the past weeks driving the streets of the college town in one Lexus in order to begin logging critical situational data into the car's memory banks through a broad array of radar and Lidar sensors. Those piloted drives "created a detailed map of the streets, things like lane markers, traffic signals, curb heights, keep-clear zones, and other information that helps our car understand exactly where it is in the world," the company said in a statement. "Over the last few days, our software and sensors have started doing the driving."
SOURCE:USA TODAY
