Bringing self-driving cars to NASCAR
March 31, 2012 at 11:52 PM
Ever since mankind could go fast, we have longed to go faster. And ever
since we've done work, we have longed to have someone else, or something
else, do that work for us. You might already be familiar with our
self-driving car project. We've spent years working on a tough engineering
problem, how to create a hardware and software system capable of gathering
and interpreting massive amounts of real-time data and acting on that
knowledge swiftly and surely enough to navigate innumerable varieties of
crowded thoroughfares without ever once (among other human frailties)
exploding in a fit of road rage at the guy who just cut hard left across
your lane without even bothering to flash his blinker.
Well, our autonomous cars have now been test-driven (or rather, test-ridden)
for more than 200,000 miles without a single machine-caused mishap. And
today we're moving the project one great leap forward with Google Racing, a
groundbreaking partnership with NASCAR to help self-driving vehicles compete
in the world of stock car racing. We think the most important thing
computers can do in the next decade is to drive cars, and that the most
important thing Google Racing can do in the next decade is drive them, if
possible, more quickly than anyone else. Or anything else.
The program remains in its infancy; we'll surely face numerous testing and
competitive hurdles before our first car peels out into a NASCAR race. But I
couldn't be more excited about the possibilities. NASCAR's ambitious
technology investments, from driver safety to green initiatives, and the
sport's spirit of challenge, effort and execution all beautifully embody our
most deeply held values as a company. Having skidded around a parking lot
last week myself, I'm pretty sure that none of those test miles were as hard
as it will be for one of our cars to hold its own in a field of 43
jacked-up, 800-horsepower beasts screaming down a straightaway within inches
of each other at upwards of 200 miles per hour. I can't imagine a more
exciting challenge for our team than to race our autonomous vehicles against
their carbon-based competitors.
Larry and I have always believed in tackling big problems that matter, and
we're surer than ever that self-driving cars are one of them, capable of
changing the world in all kinds of truly important ways, like reducing
traffic and accidents by driving more efficiently, making correct
split-second decisions and never shifting their focus off the road to check
a map, text a friend, apply rear-view mirror mascara or dip a piece of tekka
maki into a lid of soy sauce jostling over on the passenger seat. I hope
that today's announcement of Google Racing will mark another step along this
path, and spur innovations that improve the daily lives of people all over
the world. Or at the very least offer us a few cool new thrills on hot
weekend afternoons.
Posted by Sergey Brin, Co-founder
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