Google Hits 2 Million Mile Mark Testing Driverless Cars

Google wants to show autonomous vehicles are for real and has now logged more than 2 million miles on public roads, said Dmitri Dolgov, head of the self-driving technology program, Wednesday in a blog post. “If you consider the hours we’ve spent on the road, our cars now have the equivalent of 300 years of human driving experience.” Google recognized it had to tackle complex driving environments, Dolgov said. “We now spend the vast majority of our time on complex city streets, rather than simpler environments like highways,” he said. “It takes much more time to accumulate miles if you’re focused on suburban roads.” It took the company six years to hit 1 million miles, only 16 months to log the second million, he said. “With each mile we drive, our test drivers provide feedback on the car’s movements  -- things like how quickly we accelerate and brake, the distance we keep from other cars and pedestrians, or the speed and angle we turn,” he said. “With each piece of feedback, our engineers tweak our software and calibrate our driving behavior, making our self-driving car feel more natural on the road.”