Two self-driving cars: one from Google and the other from Delphi made a close call on the street recently. Delphi initially commented on the incident but now the company has altered the details of the incident.
The alleged close encounter between the two self-driving cars occurred on Tuesday, June 23, in Palo Alto's San Antonio Road. John Absmeier, a director of Delphi, and also the global business director for Delphi's automated driving program, was in the passenger seat of Delphi's self-driving car at the time of the incident, confirmed that no collision occurred.
Absmeier revealed that when the Delphi car was preparing to change lanes then the Google car cut it off and forced Delphi's vehicle to abort the lane change. Absmeier says that the Delphi car "took appropriate action."
However, on Friday, June 26, a spokesperson from Delphi, altered the details of the incident. The spokesperson reveals that the Delphi self-driving car had seen the Google car move in the lane where it was preparing to go.
When the Delphi self-driving car found that the next lane was occupied it did not change lanes at all. The spokesperson also confirmed that both the self-driving cars were one lane width apart.
"During a recent visit with Reuters, our Delphi expert described an actual interaction that we encounter all the time in real-world driving situations. In this case, it was a typical lane change manoeuvre. No vehicle was cut off and the vehicles didn't even come close to each other," per Delphi's spokesperson.
The Delphi spokesperson also explained that the Delphi and Google self-driving cars did what they were expected to do.
Google initially did not comment on the incident but the company has now issued a statement confirming that both the cars did what should have been done in a normal driving scenario.
Autonomous self-driving cars are expected to take over human drivers in the future. However, the security aspects of such cars to be driven safely on the roads are still being evaluated by car-makers.
Both Delphi and Google had previously reported minor collisions relating to self-driving vehicles and on most occasions the cars had stopped. Most of these incidents occurred at intersections and was hit by a rear car.
Photo: Travis Wise | Flickr
