Google's Autonomous Cars Clock 2 Million Miles

Many tech giants and automobile manufacturers are jointly working to lay the foundation for the future of the automotive industry by developing self-driving electric vehicles (EV). While the end motive remains the same -- to make the journey hassle-free and environmentally friendly at the same time -- every work-in-progress project is distinct. One such project has been taking shape under Google’s Alphabet Inc. brand name. 

The company has been developing autonomous cars since 2009. It recently said that its fleet of self-driving cars has clocked two million miles (over 32 lakh km) on public roads for testing, and it continues to log about 25,000 miles (over 40,000 km) of test drives per week. 

Google’s approach is different from other carmakers such as Tesla and Toyota, which are moving towards autonomous driving in incremental steps and currently still require drivers. The tech giant has been extensively testing its vehicles to master complex situations on public roads, such as cars approaching the wrong way and bicycles swerving around in traffic. The Google car can also detect whether a moving object is a child or a bicycle, and anticipates its movements. The Google car can manoeuvre itself around such situations, without needing any input from the passenger on-board.

In June 2015, Google announced its one-million–mile achievement. Its autonomous cars project has taken a little more than a year to go from one million (over 16 lakh km) to two million miles, collecting valuable real-world experiences which will in turn help fine tune the self-driving technology. Over the same period, Google says, the field of autonomous driving has changed dramatically, pointing towards a new era for transportation.

Last month, Uber began testing its own self-driving cars on the roads of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. iPhone maker, Apple Inc., too is said to be working on its own autonomous vehicle project.