Take a back seat
Google’s self-driving cars testing grounds
ATWATER, CALIF. – If Google’s selfdriving cars have a school, this is it.
Stretched across 91 arid acres here in the central part of the state is Castle, the name derived from the former air base that occupied land that is now a private testing facility owned by Waymo, the autonomous car company run by search giant Google.
For the past five years, engineers and test drivers have been running dozens of cars through their paces in order to better prepare them for real-world scenarios of rude drivers and clumsy movers.
For Waymo workers toiling in secrecy under a hot sun, the first-ever arrival Monday of a gaggle of reporters was a bit of a coming-out party.
“I’ve been out here for five years testing and testing,” said Stephanie Villegas, head of structured testing, during a demonstration that showed how a selfdriving Chrysler Pacifica minivan would yield to an aggressive driver. “It’s so fun to finally show this off.”
If you’re ready to hail a Waymo car tomorrow, hold on.
What senior Waymo executives showed off was their cars’ impeccable road manners on a closed course, including driverless rides in a Pacifica whose steering wheel seemed possessed as it wound effortlessly through Castle’s faux city.
But when it came to offering concrete updates and timelines on when selfdriving Waymo cars will be available to the general public, the answer was a repeated mantra: too early to tell.
“This has the potential to be transformative technology,” said CEO John Krafcik, outlining four specific business cases for Waymo’s autonomous tech: ride sharing, trucking, urban last-mile solutions and passenger cars. Rivals have the same aim. Those include big automakers such as Ford and Mercedes-Benz, as well as upstarts such as Faraday Future and NIO. So far, there’s a lot of smoke in the autonomous car space, but it’s hard to spot the fire.
Development may indeed take more time considering the myriad road scenarios such cars need to train for, let alone the often difficult weather conditions in some parts of the country.
Earlier this year, Waymo kicked off a program in Phoenix that has an undisclosed number of area residents using around 100 of its self-driving Pacificas for daily chores.
That real-world test helps Waymo’s engineers gather more data that will be critical to reassuring what many polls indicate is a nervous public about autonomous vehicles.
Since Arizona weather is easy for self-driving cars to contend with, Waymo just announced it would begin winter testing in Michigan.
‘Pull over’
At Villegas’ testing station, three demonstrations showcased how engineers repeatedly run Waymo Pacificas through a scenario to ensure that the car reacts properly.
One involved an aggressive driver merging into the path of the Pacifica. Another involved a car suddenly pulling out of a driveway. And the last featured workers posing as movers who spill boxes into the road.
In each case, the driverless car reacted promptly and defensively, causing some to wonder if the Pacificas were capable of honking in frustration. “They can be programmed to do that,” said Villegas, though it was clear Waymo engineers hadn’t gone for that option.
In another part of the facility, reporters were escorted into the backseat of a waiting Pacifica, which then toured the facility with no humans in the front seats.
Along the way, human-driven cars, cyclists and pedestrians were sent out to give the autonomous cars pause, but none in this controlled experiment gave the minivans a fit.
“The coming transition from being a driver to only being a passenger is going to require new customs and norms, and that’s what we’re experimenting with now,” said Juliet Rothenberg, head of user experience.
During a Q and A with reporters, Krafcik put a positive spin on what remains an exciting, if untested revolution in transportation, one that will require buy-in from regulators, municipalities and humans before it takes off.
“Some surveys say half the respondents are uncomfortable with the idea of self-driving cars,” he said. “We say, wow, that means half are already comfortable with it. That’s a very reasonable starting place.”