SAN FRANCISCO: Google announced today that its panda-shaped self-driving cars are now puttering around the streets of Mountain View, California.
This marks the first time that the pod-like, two-seat vehicles have been allowed on public roads since Google unveiled the next generation of its self-driving fleet more than a year ago. The cars had previously been confined to a private track on a former Air Force base located about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco.
Google announced last month that it would begin testing the curious-looking cars last month, but hadn’t specified the timing until Tuesday when it disclosed the vehicles are driving up to 25 miles per hour on the roads around its Mountain View, California, office.
Google has defended the safety record of its self-driving cars, saying that they were not at fault in any of the dozen or so accidents in which they’ve been involved.
Most of the collisions involved self-driving cars being hit in the rear by vehicles driven by people, according to the internet titan.
