Google puts new self-driving cars on the road

Google’s self-driving car prototypes have hit the road.

For years, the company has been using modified Lexus SUVs around Mountain View, Calif., to test its self-driving car technology. And on Thursday, the company announced that it had put vehicles of its own design on the roads for the first time.

{mosads}“The prototypes’ speed is capped at a neighborhood-friendly 25 mph, and they’ll drive using the same software that our existing Lexus vehicles use — the same fleet that has self-driven over 1 million miles since we started the project,” the company said in post.

For now the small cars will continue to have a human test driver in them at all times.

It’s a significant step forward for the project — which Google has spoken more publically about in recent months.

This week also brought the news that two self-driving cars, one from Google and another from auto parts manufacturer Delphi, had been involved in a near-accident.

Google and others have been under pressure from the press and activist shareholders to make more information about accidents involving the cars public. This month, Google released its first monthly report detailing accidents involving its vehicles.

The California DMV also decided this month to release reports of accidents involving self-driving cars to the press.