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Transportation Google

Google's Autonomous Car Passes 2 Million Miles 97

Posted by msmash from the future-is-here dept.
Google said today it recently reached a huge milestone with its autonomous cars. Its cars have logged its two-millionth mile. To put into perspective, Google's self-driving cars have travelled roughly 300 years of human driving. The first million miles took Google six years, the second million came in at 16 months. Recode evaluates how far Google's self-driving cars have come. It notes that Google has been involved in 14 of such incidents, 13 of which were caused by other drivers.
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Google's Autonomous Car Passes 2 Million Miles More

Google's Autonomous Car Passes 2 Million Miles

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  • As I understand it, the test cars don't go faster than 25mph. After so many miles of testing, will the car finally be ready to drive a bit faster?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      That's only in certain states.

    • I hate these traffic blocking cars with a passion. I live in Mountain view and they are doing 15Mph around a curve which is not even posted as a curve (no danger) and 20-25 where the speed limit is posted at 35-45.

      Oh, at first it tolerable. "awe, look at the cute little Google car." After sitting behind these things trying to drive around the city for over a year, I am considering getting an IPO for anti-Google Car chaff cannons. (soda cans full of shredded aluminum foil). I'm pretty sure that would be

      • "15Mph around a curve which is not even posted as a curve (no danger) and 20-25 where the speed limit is posted at 35-45." Do you think they have the speed set low right now so when accidents do occur that statistically there is less risk of a fatality? Can they handle weather, potholes, unmapped roads, and construction yet? I hate the hype, and hopefully soon these cars will drive fast, and work better, but it seems like all of these news reports are always forgetting to mention the bad.
      • If all humans drove that speed, they would easily be safer than a google car.

  • Meh. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "Google's self-driving cars have travelled roughly 300 years of human driving."

    Quantity != Quality. 300 years of human driving involves a lot more than driving 25 mph on suburban roads in ideal weather conditions.

  • 2 Million miles on the odometer! (Score:4, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @02:59PM (#53019495)
    They won't get much for that car when they sell it, it's hard to sell a car with more that 100,000 miles on it.

    • 12k miles is considered average yearly mileage that's about 32 miles a day so 2 million miles wouldn't be like 300 years of human driving. It's also not close to what I would drive in 300 years with a 40 mile one way commute 5-6 days a week plus all the other driving I was doing I was putting 35k to 40k on my vehicle each year for about 24 years I can safely say I've probably driven more than a millions miles. Thankfully, I don't commute like that any more.

      • 12k miles is considered average yearly mileage that's about 32 miles a day so 2 million miles wouldn't be like 300 years of human driving.

        It's even worse when you consider that there are over 6 billion humans on the planet and just over a billion cars for them to drive so if the average is 32 miles a day that makes 32 billion miles of human driving every day. So perhaps the headline should read 5.4s of human driving or 167 years of one person driving.

        • Good point... also it's only driven twice as far as me but been in 14 times as many accidents {that is if they are only counting moving accidents I've had cars hit while they were parked plenty of times}

  • I was just in Mountain View, and saw a Google car stopped at a traffic light. The light turned green, but a pedestrian jumped out in front of the car anyway. The Google car just sat there until the pedestrian left the crosswalk.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How impressive. Obstacle detection was definitely not a problem that was solved with toy cars decades ago.

      Until we have independent third party testing, this is all vaporware. I don't know why people are so trusting of development of a product that zero companies have been willing to demonstrate outside highly controlled test conditions.

  • Uh, editors? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Daetrin ( 576516 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @03:12PM (#53019585)
    "It notes that Google has been involved in 14 of such incidents"

    14 of _which_ such incidents? I mean, i can make a pretty good guess, but if i were to read the blurb without any context i might think this is the 14th time Google has passed a million miles or something.

  • A different perspective... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @03:17PM (#53019631)

    Tesla has collected over a billion miles of driving data (about 180 million on autopilot) and adds a million miles every 10 hours.

    • That's NOT an accurate comparison! In fact you cannot compare the two. The google system lets you pick a destination and the car will drive you there without intervention. Many owners who have tested Telsa's system have said you need to pay attention to what it's doing or you could potentially die like that one driver who sadly trusted it enough to watch a movie. The systems are so different on levels of automation it'd be like saying there's more miles on cruise control. Read up and learn the differen

      • The fact of the matter is, Tesla depends on their customers being shit scared of the technology or they wouldn't log the 'safety' numbers they do.

      • Re:Bad Comparison! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @03:46PM (#53019907)

        I do realize that the Google cars have a higher level of automated driving, more sensors, etc. (and also some severe limitations on speed, locations, weather, etc.).
        However, the object is to collect as much driving data as possible to see how the car behaves in different situations. In that case, total distance matters and Tesla is way ahead of anyone else. Tesla cars collect data even when AP is not switched on which is valuable to see how a human driver handles various road environments.

        This highlights a fundamental difference between Google and Tesla. Google is approaching the problem from the point of view that they have to develop a complete system that does everything. Tesla is taking an incremental approach by introducing a low level of autonomous driving with human supervision and then letting the collected data drive continuous improvements. We'll see which approach is best as time goes on.

        • Re: Bad Comparison! (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          At a certain point, Tesla's data will be less useful. Cars taking the same path down the same highway will not yield much 'experience'. How many of those miles were just one car doing exactly what the one before it did?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          So what you are saying is that Tesla out-Googled Google on the data collection front. And Tesla don't even give you the car for free!

    • So Tesla is sorta like the Google of the automotive world?

  • So, if I get this right, those Google cars cause about 0.5 accidents per 1M miles? If so, that equates to about 1.5M traffic accidents per year in the US if you replaced every car with a driverless model (assuming all rates are constant, of course). If that seems like a big number, Americans currently drive about 3 trillion miles per year and get into about 5.5 million traffic accidents. If I did the math right, driverless cars will result in about 2/3 fewer accidents per year than we experience now. Should

    • Should we all welcome our autonomous vehicle overlords now?

      As soon you figure out how to buy every American a $100K vehicle and also have automation drive safely on its own.

    • So, if I get this right, those Google cars cause about 0.5 accidents per 1M miles? If so, that equates to about 1.5M traffic accidents per year in the US if you replaced every car with a driverless model (assuming all rates are constant, of course). If that seems like a big number, Americans currently drive about 3 trillion miles per year and get into about 5.5 million traffic accidents. If I did the math right, driverless cars will result in about 2/3 fewer accidents per year than we experience now. Should we all welcome our autonomous vehicle overlords now?

      http://www.usacoverage.com/aut... [usacoverage.com]

      http://www.afdc.energy.gov/dat... [energy.gov]

      Sure if you want to drive in circles around Mountain View at half the posted speed limit.

  • It notes that Google has been involved in 14 of such incidents, 13 of which were caused by other drivers.

    So they automated politicians also?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Chrisq ( 894406 )

      It notes that Google has been involved in 14 of such incidents, 13 of which were caused by other drivers.

      So they automated politicians also?

      They didn't need to, they've been coin-operated for a while

  • Yawn (Score:2)

    by kackle ( 910159 )
    There would be no accidents if we all drove 5 mph, only in good weather, and on mostly straight roads (highways). These on the road are going to mean slower traffic for all.
  • 300 years of human driving. hmmm that must make my mother just over 200 years old.

  • Those second million might have happened in my neighborhood in Chandler, AZ. for the past year at least, we've had swarms of them driving around our neighborhood streets at all times of the day and night, thought not late night that I'm aware of (ie mid-5 am, as a linux lead for several large international companies, I get more done at night so I'm up working those hours when no one annoys me with chats etc). At times we've seen 6 driving through our streets all in a line. Driving from pickup up dinner and

  • This doesn't count all of the times that the human had to take over because the car *would* have caused an accident.

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