Google has announced prototype of its self-driving car is almost done and it’s ready for a road test. Google on Monday said it will continue operating the vehicle on its own test tracks for now and hopes to have it on public roads in 2015.
“We’re going to be spending the holidays zipping around our test track, and we hope to see you on the streets of Northern California in the new year,” the search giant’s autonomous car team noted in a post at Google+ social network.
The prototype is a display of Google’s plan to build its own autonomous car without typical features such as steering wheels.
“They won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal… because they don’t need them. Our software and sensors do all the work,” Google’s Chris Urmson said in a blog post in May.
The prototype looks very similar to a design which Google had showcased in May, but with headlights. Technical specification details about the prototype were not disclosed on Monday. However, Google had earlier said that the top speed of the battery-powered prototypes will be will be around 25 mph (40 km) per hour and that they would be designed for utility, not luxury.
Google has also unveiled images of the car which shows a white, rounded, small compact car.
“We’ve 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,” Google said.
“We’ve now put all those systems together in this fully functional vehicle-our first complete prototype for fully autonomous driving.”
Other than Google, Audi, Nissan, Mercedes and Toyota are also working on their own versions of self-driven cars.
