Google Self-Driving Car

About

Google Self-Driving Car, also known as the Google Driverless Car, is a technology developed by Google to make autonomous automobiles driven by the company’s Google Chauffeur software.

History

In 2009, Google began developing its self-driving car program^[5] in secret at the company’s Google X facility. In June 2011, Nevada passed a law to permit self-driving vehicles. On March 28th, 2012, the Google YouTube channel posted a video of a Google self-driving car being tested on public roads (shown below). In the first three years, the video gained over seven million views and 16,300 comments.

In April, Florida allowed testing of automonous cars on the state’s public roads, followed by California and Michigan over the next year. In May, the first license was given to an automonous Google-modified Toyota Prius by the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles. On May 27th, 2014, Google unveiled a new prototype driverless vehicle without a steering wheel or foot pedals (shown below, left). The same day, the Google Self-Driving Car Project YouTube channel uploaded a video explaining the project (shown below, right).

Online Presence

On June 26th, 2012, the /r/SelfDrivingCars^[3] subreddit was launched for discussions about autonomous vehicles, including the Google self-driving car project. On May 13th, 2013, the Free Art and Technology Lab (F.A.T. Lab) posted a video featuring a fake Google self-driving car riding around New York City (shown below, left). On May 24th, 2015, the Rooster Teeth YouTube channel uploaded a parody video featuring a self-driving car by Bing (shown below, right).

On July 17th, Redditor modern-era submitted an animated GIF of a Google self-driving car being rear-ended at an intersection to the /r/gifs^[4] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 5,200 votes (96% upvoted) and 760 comments in the first month (shown below).

Search Interest

External References