Self-Driving Cars From Rival Companies Have A Close Call In California Traffic

(Google)

Just yesterday, Google’s latest self-driving car models hit the streets of Mountain View, CA. But there have already been some bumps in the road, as a new report says a self-driving Google car had a near miss in traffic with another driverless vehicle this week.

An executive with Delphi Automotive PLC told Reuters that he was a passenger in a self-driving prototype from his company on Tuesday, when a Google driverless vehicle cut it off on the road. No contact was made between the two cars.

The director of Delphi’s Silicon Valley lab and global business director for the company’s automated driving program said he was in a prototype Audi Q5 crossover vehicle equipped with lasers, radar, cameras and special computer software, with a person at the wheel as backup. While the car was preparing to change lanes, he says a Google prototype — a Lexus RX400h crossover with similar technology — cut off the Audi, prompting it to cancel the lane change.

He says the Delphi car “took appropriate action.”

Google declined to comment.

This is likely the first such incident to have been reported between two self-driving cars, though Google issued a complete list of all incidents its driverless vehicles have gotten into with cars piloted by people since the company started testing the cars on the open road. In all of those collisions, the self-driving car was not at fault.

Two rival self-driving cars have close call in California [Reuters]