The deadline for the first reporting requirements was January 1 and covers a 15-month period from September 2014 to November 2015. Urmson cautioned that the rate might again rise as Google subjects the cars to more challenging environments and weather conditions.
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The company said there were another 272 cases in which failures of the cars’ software or onboard sensors forced the stand-by driver to grab the wheel.
“It’s not going to be reflective on the quality of the system”, said Alain Kornhauser, chairman of Princeton University’s autonomous vehicle engineering program. A spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.
John Krafcik, in remarks prepared for an industry trade conference hosted by Automotive News in Detroit, said “in the next stage of this project, we will need to partner more, not less”. But it’s not quite ready yet…
California regulations call for test drivers and steering wheels in autonomous vehicles.
Of those 341 incidents, 272 of them were caused by a technology failure, which by Google’s definition range in severity from minor communication breakdowns to a problem with steering or the brakes. The results probably won’t do much to assuage the fears of those who are unsure about the safety of autonomous vehicles.
Google has been testing self-driving cars in two USA states, California and Texas.
“It’s informative, but it shouldn’t be treated as a true measure of the vehicle’s safety”, said Aaron Steinfeld, a Carnegie Mellon professor who researches human-robot interaction.
There were another 69 episodes in which the test driver chose to take control of the vehicle rather than the auto signaling to the driver to take control. Audi of America spokesman Brad Stertz said he was gathering details on the incident, but believed it was a software glitch that did not affect public safety, and possibly was a false reading.
However, in a unusual twist, Google declared that its drivers had to take over the vehicle “many thousands of times” and that it was only reporting on a select few incidents as the company interprets California’s rules omit times when the auto could have coped on its own without a driver.
In October, last year, Mark Reuss, chief of product development at General Motors expressed that they are “very interested” exploring ways to complement the company’s manufacturing skills with Google’s self-driving system. Contact would have occurred in 13 of the 69 events, either with another motorist or in some cases traffic cones.
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Google sees the growing population of Americans over 65 – 40 million people today and growing annually at a 50% faster rate than the nation’s total – as a target market for self-driving cars.
