One of Google Inc's self-driving cars was involved in an
accident early in July, in which three employees were injured when a vehicle
equipped with Google technology was rear-ended by another vehicle, the company
said.
Several employees suffered minor whiplash in the July 1 incident,
when a vehicle drove into the rear of a Lexus RX450h prototype - outfitted by
Google with special sensors and software - which had stopped at a traffic light
near the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, a Google
spokesperson said on Friday.
The employees were sent to a nearby hospital "as a
precautionary measure" but were not admitted, the spokesperson said.
Google said it was the first such incident involving injuries in
a self-driving car.
The technology giant, which started developing self-driving cars
in 2009, said its prototype vehicles have been struck 14 times, including 11
rear-end collisions. The Google vehicle was not at fault in any of those
incidents, the company said.
Google disclosed the incident in a blog post on Thursday.
"Our self-driving cars are being hit surprisingly often by
other drivers who are distracted and not paying attention to the road,"
wrote Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car project, in the blog
post. "The clear theme is human error and inattention" in those
incidents.
Google is testing a fleet of 23 specially equipped Lexus
prototypes, and said it has logged more than 1 million test miles. Last month,
the company began testing tiny, bubble-shaped self-driving prototype vehicles
of its own design on public roads around Mountain View.
The company has also started testing self-driving prototypes in
Austin, Texas.
Google and other automotive manufacturers and suppliers have
said the technology to build self-driving cars should be ready by 2020.
Urmson has said the company does not want to build its own
self-driving cars, but would prefer to find a development and production
partner.
But most major multinational automakers are developing their own
so-called automated vehicles that are designed to control major functions such
as steering, brakes and throttle, without human effort.
The Google self-driving cars have humans on board who can assume
manual control of the vehicles if necessary.
No comments:
Post a Comment