Google Auto LLC

"How Google quietly revved up its very own car company"

Not so much new news, as an interesting overview and opinion on Google's direction with self driving autos

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/01/google-auto-car-making-company

thegruf said:

Not so much new news, as an interesting overview and opinion on Google's direction with self driving autos

http://How Google quietly revved up its very own car company

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Your link is not a URL it's just a phrase. Here is a link to what I think is the article you are referring to How Google quietly revved up its very own car company | Technology | The Guardian

I think the whole point of the article - Google started a separate company for the car business - has more to do with liability and the benefit of being recognized as an automaker. The idea that they will actually ramp up that company to make cars in volume like Tesla is extremely unlikely to happen. The story even quoted the head of Google Auto as saying the logical path is a partnership with an existing major automaker.

ecarfan said:

Your link is not a URL it's just a phrase. Here is a link to what I think is the article you are referring to How Google quietly revved up its very own car company | Technology | The Guardian

Click to expand...

oops - my bad - have replaced the link in the 1st post to avoid confusion - thanks

I agree, the car business has a lot more liability than other products Google makes. If one of their self driving cars goes nuts and runs down someone, they will have lawsuits coming out their ears as well as tremendously more negative publicity than if any of their other products fail dramatically. Legally I can see why they spun off the business as a separate entity.

If Google isn't getting any cooperation with major car companies, they might start building their own fully street legal cars, but I haven't seen that they have much passion for it. I think they also made some poor technological choices. The article linked from the one posted above talked about some minor accidents their cars had in Mountain View. Most of the accidents were from other cars running into their car when stopped or moving slowly. Someone interviewed for the article said the Google cars have a big rotating laser scanner on the rook which can be distracting to other drivers.

Tesla is less ambitious about self driving cars. I think Google aims to do more with self driving than Tesla does, but Tesla does aim to have a number of self driving features soon. Tesla's sensors for all these things are much more subtle than Google's approach. I think less obvious sensors are the way to go. The car may need more sensors to do the job and cover all angles, but it would be less of a distraction for other drivers.

I don't think any of the people who hit Google self-driving cars were distracted by the Google vehicle. They were likely distracted by the something in their own car and hit the Google vehicle because they didn't see it in time. However, your point about the different sensor suites and their effect on the outward appearance of the vehicle is well taken.

I finally saw one of the Roush-made Google bubble cars on the road in Mountain View. I see a Google self-driving Lexus RX at least 8 times a day. Sometimes 3 or 4 in the space of 5 minutes. There are also at least 3 or 4 variations on the roof mounted lidar system.

Google cars aren't that common around here. All we see are the street view cars once in a while. They tend to stop traffic when people see them. In Mountain View it may be more ho hum, but maybe some people from out of town were gawking and hit them? Or it could just be plain old distracted driving for other reasons as you pointed out. The article did say the Google self driving cars do have a much higher accident rate than other cars, but the accidents weren't the Google cars fault for the most part.

wdolson said:

Google cars aren't that common around here. All we see are the street view cars once in a while. They tend to stop traffic when people see them. In Mountain View it may be more ho hum, but maybe some people from out of town were gawking and hit them? Or it could just be plain old distracted driving for other reasons as you pointed out. The article did say the Google self driving cars do have a much higher accident rate than other cars, but the accidents weren't the Google cars fault for the most part.

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Yeah, around Google HQ, they are so prevalent that people don't really given them a second look anymore. If anything, I would attribute accidents to them being programmed to be overly conservative, and following all the rules in traffic. I think some people have run into them because they weren't expecting a car to stop so suddenly when something unexpected happened.