Goodbye, Google. Hello Waymo.
Leaders of the self-driving-car project that has sparked a surge of interest in autonomous vehicles since its creation seven years ago announced two major milestones Tuesday. First, the project is being spun off from its parent company and into its own independent entity known as Waymo, an amalgamation of “a new way forward in mobility.”
As Waymo, which remains a subsidiary of Google’s Alphabet, company leaders say the project will further pursue commercialization of its autonomous-vehicle technology. CEO John Krafcik foresees deployment of the self-driving systems across multiple forms of transportation, including applications in ride-sharing services, commercial trucking, and personally owned vehicles.
While there are no specifics yet on how soon that technology will reach customers, Krafcik said the company’s engineers are drawing closer. He disclosed Tuesday that they reached another major milestone on October 20, 2015, when they launched a fully autonomous vehicle—sans traditional controls—on public roads in Austin, Texas.
“There’s no steering wheel, no pedals,” Krafcik said. “It was a fully driverless ride.”
“
“I was alone in the vehicle, and I trusted a vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals. The driver has been eliminated as a necessary component of the vehicle.” – Steve Mahan, first official Google passenger
”
That squares with the company’s mission to render those traditional controls obsolete. Affirming Waymo’s concentration on creating technology for vehicles that don’t require humans to monitor autonomous systems, he said the company has driven an additional 1,000,000 miles on public roads since the Austin milestone and racked up a billion more miles in simulated driving. Krafcik deflected a question on why the company waited more than a year to share news of its milestone.
Together, those developments would seem to put the company formerly known as Google’s self-driving car project back in a leadership position to push the existing boundaries of self-driving technology.
The inaugural trip around Austin featured a face familiar to those who have been following Google’s self-driving-car developments. Steve Mahan, an executive with the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center who has ridden in Google self-driving cars and been featured in the company’s promotional videos, was selected to be the first official passenger to ride in a vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals available. He started the ride alongside Nathaniel Fairfield, Waymo’s principal software engineer, before Fairfield exited the vehicle and let Mahan ride solo.
In doing so, Mahan exhibited the central trait necessary if self-driving vehicles are to succeed in widespread deployment: trust.
“I have a great deal of trust in Nathaniel and the team developing the vehicle, and I was excited to sit by him in the car for the first part of the drive, but more excited when the car pulled over to drop him off,” Mahan said Tuesday. “I was alone in the vehicle, and I trusted a vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals. The driver has been eliminated as a necessary component of the vehicle to get to its goals. And I had the greatest time driving around.”
from Car and Driver BlogCar and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/2hBYJjU
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment