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The Enemy Of The Google Car Is - Snow!

Matthew DeBord   

The Enemy Of The Google Car Is - Snow!

snowstorm

REUTERS/Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News/Pool

No place for a Google Car.

Google is now a car company.

Late last year, it rolled out test versions of the prototype self-driving podmobile it first revealed to the public in mid-2014.

These autonomous vehicles will now take to the roadways of California in an effort to push the envelope on the self-driving concept that Google pioneered with modified Toyota Priuses.

The Google Car has a critical foe however - and it isn't the traditional auto industry.

It's snow.

Speaking at the Detroit Auto Show, the guy in charge of Google bold experiment in self-driving said that alpine conditions are not something the Google Car will be tackling, at least not right away.

"It turns out in Mountain View, it doesn't snow," Chris Urmson told Bloomberg.

"There are a lot of places where we can get an initial deployment, understand the tests, see how people use it and then push the technological boundaries into these more challenging situations."

Urmson also denied that Google is now a car company, insisting that the tech giant is just that and only that. So far, Google has partnered with various manufacturers to build the Google Car.

However, even though Urmson contrasted Google's skill at creating "self-driving technology" with the automakers' ability to build cars, it's more than worth noting that the automobile as we know could undergo a radical change if Google can perfect its revolutionary self-driving idea.

google selfdrivingcar

Google

I prefer it in Mountain View.


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