Alphabet"s Waymo has arguably been the biggest investor in true self-driving cars in recent months, having announced back in May that its driverless cars would soon start making their way to Phoenix. Today, the company has announced that it has reached a new milestone (no pun intended) for its self-driving technology.
John Krafcik, CEO of Waymo, revealed in an interview and on Twitter that the firm"s cars have self-driven a total of eight million miles on public roads, having doubled the number reached back in November. Waymo cars are now driving an average of 25,000 miles per day on public roads, which is both impressive and necessary if self-driving cars are the future.
In addition to the real-life numbers, the cars have also driven 5 billion miles in virtual simulations, where more uncommon scenarios can be tested repeatedly and without risk. That"s already a significant amount of testing data, and with more cars being added to its fleet, the number of miles driven should increase exponentially over time.
Krafcik remains realistic with his expectations, however, saying that it will be "longer than you think" until true self-driving solutions are commercially available. Currently, many cars offer driving assistance to varying degrees, including Tesla"s Autopilot, which has a somewhat misleading name as the driver is still fully responsible for driving the car.
Via: The Verge