Who knew, Google is now working to build its own self-driving cars, and today it is showing off prototype vehicles with no steering wheel or traditional user controls that are in the works. The search giant announced today at the Recode Conference, the official Google Blog and a new Google Self-Driving Car Project Google+ page giving us a glimpse of it’s first in house self-driving vehicle.
The Smart car looks like a mix up of, a BMW i3, the first Kiira EV prototype and some creative thinking, this prototype is built with off-the-shelf automotive parts and has a distinct lack of any user controls apart from a pair of seatbelts and a single button in the center console, how cool. The electric car carries two passengers at a time,just like the Ugandan made Kiira EV, but this one is of course using more advance features.
These prototypes are speed-limited to 40 Kph and are low on comforts (you can see the full exposed roll cage in the below video), simply having a compartment for the passengers’ belongings and a screen showing the driving route. Google says it wants to make about 100 prototype vehicles of this kind with manual controls included for pilot program testing on the streets.
