Google drove journalists in an unmanned car in an artificial city. How was it?

The “daughter” of the Google Alphabet maternal holding is Waymo, which is developing technologies for unmanned cars, on October 30 introduced a working prototype. Journalists were allowed to ride a Chrysler Pacifica car, on which they installed equipment for driving without drivers. In parallel, the Waymo leadership determined what kind of autopilot in these machines would be decided that a person’s participation in management would not be required in principle.

Demonstration races were carried out in the small California city of Ataoter-this is two hours of driving from San Francisco. There, in 2013, Waymo built a training ground called Castle to test unmanned vehicles on the site of the former base of the US Air Force.

In fact, the companyrecreated the city in the city - on the test site they created roads, borders, pedestrian crossings, railway crossings (no trains) and installed traffic lights. Also, several trees were planted there, scattered a few stones and placed orange road cones. All this is fenced with a two -meter fence.

The salon of an unmanned car is almost no different from Chrysler Pacifica. The only thing that catches your eye is a small panel above the rear view mirror with four buttons. On one of them, blue, it is written "start a trip." If you press it, then after a few seconds the minivan begins to go. Two screens are installed on the front seats, which shows the route map.

The interior of the Waymo drone. Photo: Waymo

Initially, the Waymo drone looked different and more futuristic. It was a car like a “smart” called Firefly with rounded corners. The company itself developed it, but ultimately refused this idea and decided to install the technology necessary for unmanned movement on commercial cars.

Go to Chrysler Pacifica was due to the fact that Firefly capabilities were limited: for example, it could accelerate only to 40 km/h.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HBD8N3J7BG

The Verge journalist spoke about his impressions of the trip: “We traveled to cyclists, a couple of pedestrians, a sad man who stood with his broken Hyundai. All these people were actors hired by Waymo for simulating the real world by 3.6 hectares of a test site. It was a soft, completely unforgettable trip. There was no one behind the wheel. And in the passenger seat too. "

Subscribe to read the whole

Make a subscription Redefine.media to read Republic

Subscribe [you can pay for a Russian or foreign card. The subscription is extended automatically. You can unsubscribe at any time.]

Where are the money subscribers going

Most Republic materials are available by paid subscription. We believe that this is a good way to finance media. After all, as you know, if you have not paid for reading it, then someone else paid for you to read it. In our case, everything is honest: from your money, salaries and fees are paid to journalists, and they write about important and interesting topics for you.

The key feature of our subscription: your money is distributed between Republic magazines depending on how you read it. If you read the materials of one magazine, then your money will go only to him, while others will not go. That is, you finance only what you are interested in.

Republic uses the Redefine.media subscription. For design, we will redirect you to the Redefine.media website, where you will need to register and pay for the subscription. Authorization on the Redefine.Media website will allow you to read Republic materials from the same device.

A year subscription is more profitable than a month. And if you want to unsubscribe, this can always be done in your personal account.