Google's self-driving car company, Waymo, has been quietly manufacturing its own sensors, radars, and vision system for its vehicles – hardware that will hit the streets on Waymo&039;s 100 new Pacifica minivans later this month, its chief executive John Krafcik announced Sunday.
Krafcik said building the hardware in-house, in addition to its self-driving software, has brought down costs and increased reliability.
The company&039;s own laser systems, for example, cost 90% less than the comparable $75,000 product LiDar from a supplier.
“We’re mastering the hardware and software to build a better driver for a truly self-driving car,” Kracfik said.
The Pacificas will launch in Arizona and California this month.
Krafcik also said the company has seen an improvement in the performance of its self-driving vehicles, which have traveled nearly 2.5 million miles.
He said that in 2015 Waymo test drivers turned off self-driving and took over control manually at a rate of 0.8 times per thousand miles. In 2016, that rate shrank to 0.2 disengagements per thousand miles.
Krafcik&039;s announcement at Detroit&039;s annual auto show on Sunday comes one month after Google parent Alphabet spun out its self-driving car program into a new company called Waymo.
Last month, the company also announced that it had completed a fully autonomous drive in Austin, Texas, in 2015 – a drive with a blind passenger in the back of a vehicle.
Meanwhile, Uber&039;s self-driving car program, which launched in Pittsburgh in September, has hit some road blocks.
The ride-hail giant was forced by California regulators to shut down its self-driving pilot program in San Francisco just days after it launched.
LINK: Google Parent Alphabet Spins Out Self-Driving Car Company As Waymo
Quelle: <a href="Google&039;s Self-Driving Car Company Has Been Quietly Building Its Own Hardware“>BuzzFeed
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