Google has announced that it's autonomous self-driving cars have rolled over more than a million miles of tarmac on public roads.
The mark was passed last week and is 10 times more than the 100,000 miles that CEO Larry Page challenged the team to reach when the project started in 2009.
"Along the way, we've navigated more than 200,000 stop signs, 600,000 traffic lights, and seen 180 million vehicles - with several thousand traffic cones, some fluttering plastic shopping bags, and a rogue duck thrown in for good measure," the team members said in a Google+ post today, June 3.
The second test that Page set in 2009 was to drive 10 sets of 100 interesting miles - well-known California routes that included crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, navigating the curves of Lombard Street in San Francisco, and traversing the 200-plus traffic lights on the major boulevard El Camino Real. The team also hurdled this challenge early on.
If you think you've read this it's because Chris Urmson, the director of the self-driving car project wrote a post last month declaring that Google's cars had driven 1.7 million miles. This figure was for assisted and autonomous driving combined, whereas last week's milestone was for fully autonomous driving only.
Since 2009, the self-driving cars have been involved in just 11 minor accidents, none of which incurred human injuries. The Google cars were rear-ended in seven of the incidents and were not at fault for any of the accidents.
"We're taking this million-mile milestone as further proof that fully self-driving vehicles will become a reality, and we're looking forward to finding out where the next million miles will take us," said Google's statement.
No doubt the team knows exactly where the next million miles is likely to take their cars - directly to a fully commercialized model, available for purchase or rent to the general public. Specially designed prototype cars, different from current models which are regular cars like the Lexus RX450h SUV adapted to be self-driving, are already scheduled to hit California's highways this summer.
The new prototypes will have a top speed capped at 25 mph and will have safety drivers aboard with a removable steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake pedal that allow them to take over driving if needed.
Google has said that eventually it hopes to partner with car manufacturers to build commercial models of the car, but for now residents of Mountain View, Calif., can expect to see the Google-built bubble cars zipping around the neighborhood.
