Google's Has Secretly Been Testing a Self-Driving Car

The Official Google Blog:

"Larry and Sergey founded Google because they wanted to help solve really big problems using technology. And one of the big problems we’re working on today is car safety and efficiency. Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use.

So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research."

I knew that DARPA has been testing these things for a while, but I guess I didn't realize how far we'd come.

UPDATE:> Here's video of a google car on the move:

Google Computer-Driven Prius from Ben Tseitlin on Vimeo.