An Associated Press investigation found Google Inc.'s self-driving cars have been involved in nearly a dozen accidents since first hitting the streets six years ago. The report's anonymous source said at least one incident occurred while the vehicle was in driverless mode.
Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car program, fired back shortly after the story was published.
"If you spend enough time on the road, accidents will happen whether you're in a car or a self-driving car," Urmson said in a post published to Backchannel on Monday. We've been involved in 11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during those 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel, and not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident."
Seven of Google's accidents involved being rear-ended, and two were side-swipes, according to Urmson. Eight of the 11 fender-benders occurred on city streets.
Five other companies - including Delphi Automotive - said their own autonomous vehicles had no accidents. Unlike Google who has yet to make public any of their records, Delphi sent the AP an accident report detailing damage to their 2014 Audi caused by .
While their rate for reported "property-damage-only crashes" is 0.3 per 100,000 miles driven, or three-tenths above the nation average, Google chalks the high number up to the large number of accidents that go unreported to police.
"Our safety drivers routinely see people weaving in and out of their lanes; we've spotted people reading books, and even one playing a trumpet. A self-driving car has people beat on this dimension of road safety," Urmson said.
Google is among numerous tech companies and car manufacturers vying to be the first to bring autonomous cars to the open market. Earlier this year, Urmson said he believed Google's version could be available by the year 2020.
The price for self-driving technology will be added to a car's sticker price and could initially be $7,000 to $10,000, according to an Autonomous Cars for IHS Automotive study released last year. The figure is expected to drop to $5,000 in 2030 and $3,000 by 2035.
As for Google, Urmson has said advertising the hefty price tag could be a challenge. The various lasers and radars attached to a Google car bring the cost to about $75,000, though that figure should come down with higher production volumes.
"These experiences (and countless others) have only reinforced for us the challenges we all face on the roads today," Urmson said. "We'll continue to drive thousands of miles so we can all better understand the all too common incidents that cause many of us to dislike day to day driving."
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