Another month of testing its autonomous car is in the books for Google.

The tech juggernaut has released a self-driving car report for the month of November, detailing everything from its autonomous vehicle being pulled over by police to being rear-ended in separate incidents.

According to Google's report, the company had 23 self-driving prototypes on public roads in Mountain View, CA. and seven more in Austin, TX. over November and is averaging 10,000 to 15,000 autonomous miles per week.

Part of the report detailed how Google's self-driving car was stopped by a Mountain View police officer for going too slow and was rear-ended in a separate incident — both within last month.

In the former incident, the police officer questioned the company's reps as to why the car was traveling 24 miles per hour in a 35-mph zone — something Google explained in its November report.

"In California our prototypes are allowed to travel on roads with speed limits up to 35mph. Most roads in Mountain View are 25mph because they're quiet residential streets, so our prototype fits right in," the company wrote.

That brings up the question, though, of what would happen if an emergency vehicle needed the self-driving car to rush out of the way? To that, Google says its cars' software are programmed to sense emergency-vehicle alerts and react accordingly.

Meanwhile, Google's autonomous Lexus vehicle, the Google AV, was involved in an accident on November 2, when it was rear-ended as it approached an intersection.

"The Google AV came to a complete stop at a red light at the intersection and then began to slowly advance in order to get a better view of cross traffic on El Camino Real approaching from the left to determine whether it was clear to make the right turn on red. A vehicle approaching from behind came to a stop and then rolled forward and collided with the rear bumper of the Google AV," the tech giant reported. "The approximate speed of the other vehicle at the time of impact was 4mph. The speed of the Google AV at the time of impact was below 1mph. There were no injuries reported at the scene by either party."

In six years of testing and upwards of two million combined autonomous and manual driving miles, Google's cars have been involved in 17 minor accidents.

ⓒ 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Join the Discussion