Google self driving car is developed by Google X as a portion of its project of developing technology focusing electric cars. A software called Google Chauffer is installed in this car. The program was formerly led by the former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google View, Sebastian Thrun.
His team at Stanford developed the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prizes from the United States Department of Defense. The team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for Google, including Mike Montemerlo, Chris Urmson and Anthony Levandowski who had worked on the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges.
Legislation has been passed in four U.S. states and Washington D.C. to allow driverless cars. The state of Nevada passed a law permitting the operation of autonomous vehicles in Nevada on June 29, 2011, after Google had been struggling in that state for robotic car laws. The Nevada law went live on March 1, 2012, and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles issued the first permit for an autonomous car in May 2012, to a Toyota Prius altered with Google’s trial driverless technology.
In April 2012, Florida turned into the second state to permit the testing of self-governing autos on open roads, and California turned into the third when Governor Jerry Brown marked the bill into law at Google Headquarters in Mountain View. In December 2013, Michigan turned into the fourth state to permit testing of driverless autos on open roads. In July 2014, the city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho received a mechanical autonomy law that incorporates procurements to consider self-driving cars.
Google came up with a new concept for their driverless car in May 2014 that had neither a steering wheel nor pedals — launched a fully functional prototype model in December 2014 that was planned to be tested on San Fransisco Bay Area roads by the starting of 2015. These cars are expected to be available publicly by the end of 2020.