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Leebert [soylentnews.org] writes:

MIT Technology Review has an interesting article [technologyreview.com] about the current state of Google's self-driving cars. Specifically, the myriad limitations that aren't usually mentioned in articles about the technology.

Some examples from the article, which are sourced from Google itself: The self-driving car can't drive itself on about 99% of the roads in the U.S. because it requires hyper-accurate maps which haven't been created for those roads. The maps are resource intensive (both computer and human) to create. It's very sensitive to changes in the stored maps; if a stoplight were erected without being included in the map, the car wouldn't know to obey it. The car hasn't been tested in heavy rain or on snow-covered roads. And it's generally incompetent at parking. There's a few other amusing (and terrifying) examples in the article.

Chris Urmson, the director of the Google car team who is the primary source in the article, says that he wants these issues will be worked out in the next few years, and believes in many cases the problems exist merely because they haven't gotten around to addressing them yet.

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