Google is taking its self-driving tests to the next level in Austin, the company has already been testing its autonomous Lexus SUVs in Austin for quite some time now but it’s said to be ready to bring its own fully self-driving cars out on the roads of the Texas capital. This will be the first such test of Google’s own self-driving car outside of California where there’s no driver behind the wheel.
The Dallas Morning News reports that while Google has been testing its autonomous Lexus SUVs in the city for a few months it made sure to include a driver behind the wheel during those tests. This time around the company is going to go fully automatic and let the cars do their thing without no driver present.
Google’s pod-like self-driving cars are expected to arrive in Austin next week and will likely take to the roads in a small area north and northeast of downtown within a few weeks.
These cars have already been tested for more than 100,000 miles on California roads so the company already has significant amounts of data to work with and improve the systems, Austin now gets the honor of being the first city outside of Google’s home state to host these fully self-driving cars.