Google's Driverless Cars to Leave the Nest

Google on Friday announced it will begin testing prototypes of its fully autonomous self-driving cars on public roads. The vehicles won't roam too far from their Mountain View, California, home -- but this latest phase of testing could be critical both for cultivating positive consumer perceptions, and influencing future legislation affecting the nascent sector.

Google has "a few" driverless car prototypes that will be testing this summer, said Chris Urmson, director of the Google Self-Driving Car Project. The prototypes are based on the familiar Smart Fortwo-like bubble designs that have become almost synonymous with self-driving cars.

Google previously had leaned heavily on modified Lexus RX450h SUVs to conduct its research into autonomous vehicle technologies. The SUVs have logged a close to a million miles of autonomous driving on test tracks and public roads since the start of the project, and they have been traveling roughly 10,000 miles each week, Urmson said.

Mountain View residents needn't worry about driverless cars flying around their neighborhoods at high speeds. The Google cars will operate at a "neighborhood-friendly" top speed of 25mph, and they'll have driver on board -- as well as a removable steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake pedal -- should manual operation be warranted, the company said.

In the coming years, Google wants to launch pilot programs so that it can learn more about how people would use driverless cars. For now, though, the company wants to gauge public perception of the vehicles and discover challenges unique to driverless cars.