Milestone · October 9, 2010

Google reveals its self-driving project

Google said its cars had already driven more than 220 thousand kilometres on California roads with a supervising driver.

Why it matters

Autonomous driving moved from research races into commercial development, and with the team that won the Grand Challenge.

Sebastian Thrun, who led the winning 2005 team, ran the project with Anthony Levandowski. The project's existence became known from a New York Times piece the same day, after which Google confirmed it officially. The cars drove with a person at the wheel ready to take over. Waymo grew out of this project.

Event record

Event date

October 9, 2010

Timeline date

Event date

Verification

Sources gathered automatically · September 17, 2026

Lines

Autonomous driving

ID

evt-0253

The project was made public on 9 October 2010.

Sources

primary What we're driving at
Google · Published October 2010
secondary Google Self-Driving Car Project
Wikipedia

Related events

Related Stanley wins the Grand Challenge
The team and the approach come straight from the DARPA races.
Related The Urban Challenge
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Records that link to this one

Related The first licence for a driverless car
The first licence was issued to a car from this project.
Related Tesla Autopilot
Instead of laser scanners and maps, cameras and over-the-air updates on production cars.
Extends Waymo becomes a company
The project made public in 2010 became a company of its own.
Say hello to Waymo
Related San Francisco opens to everyone
A project announced as research became city transport fourteen years later.
Related ALVINN: a neural network steers the van
Google's road vehicles grew out of the DARPA winners, and those out of the Navlab and ALVINN line at Carnegie Mellon.