Introducing our autonomous race car partnership with NASCAR.
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Our Technology
How a sense of wonder and a need for speed will help
build the next generation of racing technology.
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Feeling driven
Humans cause the vast majority of all auto accidents and experience 100% of all traffic annoyance. The answer, obviously, was self-driving cars. The question, obviously, was how on Earth to build them.
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Thrun overboard
Helping to put much of the paved world into a searchable and surfable 3D-image database apparently was insufficiently ambitious for Street View engineer and former Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun, who went on to found Google's autonomous vehicle program in 2008.
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Project Caddy
Our early test project, code-named Caddy, demonstrated that self-driving golf carts could drop people off at designated locations and pick them up at designated times, all without wasting fuel, taking up parking space, or playing music you don't like but are too embarrassed to ask the cabbie to turn off.
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On the road
Google's automated cars have driven more than 200,000 miles without a machine-caused accident. And yes, this image really is what the vehicle "sees" when it's driving.
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States of being
Nevada has established a testing framework to allow these cars to be operated for real, with California filing legislation to follow suit. Self-driving cars in Vegas and Hollywood?
The mind reels.
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Coming home
The launch of our NASCAR partnership sets the autonomous vehicle team onto yet another uncharted road. At least this time they'll have a sweet ride.
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Future Uses
Stock cars are just the beginning. Here's where
we think automated vehicles will take us.
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Excellent taste
The battery keeps the dish warm. The GPS plots the quickest possible journey. And the car, of course, drives itself. Your only problem will be choosing from which restaurant to order delivery.
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Interested parties
Where's she going after the party?
Only her dashboard knows for sure.
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The new date night
The carriage ride of the 21st century will be, um, still
a carriage ride, only with digital projection, mood lighting
and considerably more horsepower.
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Commuted sentence
Warriors of old rode off to battle on the backs of their trusty steeds. Tomorrow's corporate warriors will do
the same in the backs of theirs.
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Pooling resources
Diapers. Shoes. Juice boxes. Dental appointments
via Bluetooth. All from the driver's seat.
Thank you, Google Carpool.
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Museum piece
Future installations like this one may help our descendants understand how early 21st-century humanity still lived.
NASCAR - Mar 31, 2012 - Public
Google is working closely with the sanctioning body and has formed a racing division, Google Racing. Watch exclusive footage of Google's testing efforts and reaction from some of the top drivers on NASCAR.COM. Is the future of the sport in autonomous car technology?
