Google self-drives 3km

Google’s self-driving car programme has logged more than three million kilometres on US public roads, showing a public release of the technology is edging closer.  The programme, run by Google owner Alphabet, now includes nearly 60 self-driving cars across four US states, according to TechTimes.com. The vehicles have been learning as they drive through the streets, with the technology being developed to become safer drivers than humans. The driving milestone of two million miles translates into 300 years of driving for a person, says Google self-driving technology head Dmitri Dolgov in a post. Dolgov says it was easy to have the self-driving car master the first 90 per cent of the skills needed for the task, including navigating through simple intersections, traffic lights and driving down motorways. However, a true self-driving car will also need to have experience with unique and difficult situations, which is why to master the remaining 10 per cent, Google has decided to have the vehicles spend their time on complex streets rather than wide-open highways. Accumulating the first million miles of experience took six years, but it only took Google 16 months to collect the second million, showing how the company has been able to hasten the development of the technology. The point of all the testing is for Google to build a driver, not simply develop software, Dolgov says.