PHOENIX — Google has brought its self-driving vehicles to the Phoenix area to see how the technology performs amid crippling summer heat and, if researchers are lucky, a giant dust storm or two.
The Mountain View, Calif., company's four Lexus SUVs will have odd-looking equipment attached to the roof.
“Also, in some communities, there are golf cart crossings, I understand,” said Jennifer Haroon, head of business operations for the Google Self-Driving Car project.
Google engineers are not content to test the technology on the flattest, least complicated segments of road. They intentionally seek challenges to test the capabilities of their fleet.
“Our ultimate goal is to create fully autonomous vehicles that can take anyone from point A to point B at the push of a button,” she said. “Safety is our No. 1 goal and why we are working on self-driving cars.”
Google has been developing self-driving vehicle technology for seven years, and so far has 54 vehicles driving themselves, with Google employees aboard in Mountain View, Austin and Kirkland, Wash., according to a monthly project report. Its fleet includes Lexus RX450h SUVs and Google’s own prototype vehicles.
In the last week, four of the SUVs have been mapping portions of the Phoenix metro area in preparation to drive autonomously, with test drivers aboard to take control if needed. Haroon said the plan is to begin the autonomous tests in Chandler, Ariz., and expand through the metro area from there.
The Google cars use real-time data collected by lasers, radar and cameras on the vehicle, and compare that with city maps to determine the vehicle’s location more accurately than common GPS, which might show a vehicle several feet from its actual location. The company also generates maps that show permanent features of roadways, such as curb heights, while cameras indicate moving objects such as pedestrians.
The cars are programmed to show a level of caution and courtesy frequently unseen on city streets. For example, they yield the right of way to bicyclists using hand signals, according to Google. And the cars won’t proceed across railroad tracks until the car ahead has cleared the tracks.
Chandler Mayor Jay Tibshraeny said the project lends to his city’s reputation as a technology and innovation hub in the Southwest. “We are proponents of this technology,” he said. “We think it is a sign of the future.”
He said the city’s first discussions with Google occurred just more than two weeks ago, and within 10 days, the city was notified the company would bring its test to town.
“We are looking to attract new technology and to convert it into jobs,” Tibshraeny said.
After a day of riding around in the autonomous vehicles, the Google engineers will report any unusual encounters and events that can help improve the technology.
Already in more than 1.4 million miles of autonomous testing, Google has seen its vehicles avoid red-light runners, wayward cyclists and a variety of other obstacles.
Earlier this year, a Google vehicle driving near the company headquarters moved to avoid sandbags on the side of the road and hit a bus while traveling 2 miles per hour. It was the first time the autonomous vehicles are believed to be partially responsible for a collision.
On 16 other occasions, the autonomous vehicles have been hit by other cars, usually rear-ended at stoplights, and once a Google employee manually operating a vehicle caused an accident, Haroon said.
“It really goes to show the amount of distracted driving on the roads,” she said. “... That is where we feel self-driving cars make a big difference.”
Bob St. Louis, professor of information systems at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, said self-driving cars raise a variety of interesting issues, from who is liable in accidents to what kind of decisions the vehicles are programmed to make if collisions are imminent.
But he said there seems to be little doubt they will become more common as major automakers all expect to have some version on the road by 2020.
“I’m 71, and I always tell my kids they won’t have to take my keys away from me because I will have a self-driving car,” said St. Louis.
While people raised from the 1950s through 1970s have strong connections to their vehicles, younger people seem more comfortable with giving up driving, he said.
“People don’t mind using Uber,” he said. “What is the difference?”
Haroon said Arizona provides a welcome environment for self-driving vehicle research. On March 9, Gov. Doug Ducey announced a self-driving oversight committee to advise the Department of Transportation, the Department of Public Safety, universities and other agencies on how to advance the tech on public roads.
Already this year, Tesla Motors and Ford have promoted their respective self-driving technology in metro Phoenix.
Google Self-Driving Car Project
• 1,498,214 miles driven by Google's vehicles in autonomous mode since 2009.
• 10,000 to 15,000 miles driven per week, on average.
• 54 vehicles in fleet, including Lexus SUVs and Google prototype vehicles.
Source: Google monthly project report, March 31.
Follow Ryan Randazzo on Twitter: @utilityreporter
