Self-Driving Car | Google's Car

As expected, California Gov. Jerry Brown today signed into law a bill that establishes safety and performance standards for self-driving cars in the state.
Brown joined the bill's sponsor, state Sen. Alex Padilla, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the search giant's Mountain View headquarters to sign the legislation, S. 1298.
Google has long championed the idea of a self-driving car and has been testing its own autonomous vehicle for about two years now. But why is Google, which is known for its search engine and mobile operating systems, devoting time to cars? Brin said today that a self-driving car ties in well to Google's goal of "creating technology to dramatically improve the world."
"I think the self-driving car can really dramatically improve the quality of life for everyone here in California, the country, and the world," said Brin, who was sporting one of Google's other innovative gadgets - Project Glass.
Brin pointed to four ways in which a self-driving car could be of use to Americans, including the freedom it could provide to those who cannot drive themselves - whether they are disabled or have perhaps just had one too many drinks. He asserted that far too many people in the U.S. are "underserved by technology," particularly in the suburbs, and self-driving cars can help change that.
Safety, meanwhile is another big factor. Though ensuring the security of a self-driving car is "one of the most difficult things" the autonomous car team at Google has tackled, Brin said that when done right, a self-driving car can be safer than a car piloted by a human.
With more than 40,000 Americans killed each year in car accidents, "it's at a substantial cost that we embrace our transportation systems, and I think that self-driving cars can eradicate much of those costs," Brin said.
There's also the matter of lifestyle. Many drivers find themselves stuck in traffic on a daily basis, and the ability to get some work done or just watch a video on your tablet while commuting could ease the aggravation of a traffic jam, Brin said.
It's a "great feeling of relief" to hand things over to the car, according to Brin. At times, Google's car requires that the driver take over control - when in a construction zone, for example - and "I pretty quickly got sick of that" and wanted to go back to self-driving mode, Brin said.
Finally, there's the opportunity to eradicate traffic congestion and the acres and acres of parking lots all over the country, Brin said.
"Self-driving cars can actually chain together and use the highways more efficiently – potentially eradicating congestion," he said.
In terms of parking, meanwhile, your self-driving car could drop you off at work and then drive itself to a location where it could park in a manner that's more efficient than today's parking lots.

In an autonomous lot, you wouldn't need room to open doors and let passengers out, so you could pack more vehicles into one space.
"What I see in this project is the potential to really transform our urban centers and not need that much parking," Brin said.
When asked when Americans might expect to see an autonomous car on the road, Brin predicted that we'd have access within five years. By year's end, Google hopes to have a "broader subset of our employees" test out the company's self-driving cars, with wider access to come.
But will Google actually make a car? At this point, the company is running its autonomous technology on a Toyota Prius. Brin said today that Google has "had great conversations with a variety of auto makers," but said the company does not currently have any plans to make its own vehicles.