Google’s Developing Self-Driving Cars

There’s a Toyota Prius in California, and a VW Passat halfway around the globe both equipped with bucket-shaped contraptions that let the cars drive themselves. Following their research on autonomous autos in the DARPA Urban Challenge, a team at Germany’s TU Braunschweig let the above GPS, laser and sensor-guided Volkswagen wander down the streets of Brunswick unassisted late last week, and today Google revealed that it’s secretly tested seven similar vehicles by the folks who won that same competition. CMU and Stanford engineers have designed a programmable package that can drive at the speed limit on regular streets and merge into highway traffic, stop at red lights and stop signs and automatically react to hazards. Google says its seven autos have already gone 1,000 unassisted miles. Google estimates self-driving vehicles are at least eight years down the road.