A look inside the Google Car lair

Marco della Cava | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Exclusive: Inside Google's new self-driving car USA TODAY's Marco della Cava got an exclusive look at Google's self-driving car at the Google facility in Mountain View, Calif.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — You know you're a slow driver when the motorist scowling behind you is a senior citizen. But cut Google Car some slack. It's new to the planet.

"We're conscious of the impression we can make while driving around town," says Nathaniel Fairfield, who leads software design for the search company's five-year-old self-driving car project. "If we need to, we'll take control from the computer. But mainly, it's out here to learn."

By all accounts, Google Car is getting smart fast. USA TODAY spent a day recently with project lead Chris Urmson and various engineers, riding in one of the gadget-laden Lexus self-driving cars that currently collect road data. We also got to explore the Google-built pod-like prototype that spends most of its time in Google's secret garage.

Urmson is delivering a TED Talk Tuesday in Vancouver about the state of the project. The speech is an opportunity for Google to re-stake its claim to autonomous driving at a time when many companies seem to be throwing their hats into the ring.

Rumors swirl that Apple may build a car. Sony has made similar noises. Uber has formed a partnership with robotics experts at Carnegie Mellon University. And traditional automakers, such as Ford, Audi and Volvo, have expressed interest in moving from driver-assist to driverless technology.

Urmson, a boyish Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. graduate and a past winner of the DARPA Grand Challenge for robotic cars, says his team is nearing a finish line of sorts.

Having thoroughly mapped its suburban hometown, Google anticipates introducing its two-person pods to Mountain View's streets here later this year. The mission will be to vet the vehicles before they are ready for consumers, which should be within five years.

"I have a son who's 11 and the notion that he could get a driver's permit in five years is a terrible thing," Urmson says with a laugh. "So that's our goal, to help him."

PARTNER, NOT BUILD

Another insight from Urmson is the fact that Google does not plan to build fleets of small driverless cars. Instead, it'll call in the experts.

"We think there's a business opportunity here, but what's evident is that making cars is really hard, and the car companies are quite good at it," he says. "So, in my mind, the solution is to find a partnership."

That tech-and-auto company dance is easy to imagine. Walking around the bubble-like Google Car prototype, one can envision its aluminum and steel shell being constructed by an automaker while its high-tech guts — an array of lasers, radar and cameras — are provided by Google. Branding could be worked out later.

Inside a Google garage on its main corporate campus, Jaime Waydo, Google Car's lead vehicle development engineer, gives a quick overview of the various vehicles on display, an evolution of the Google Car species.

On one end is a Lexus with off-the-shelf radar and lasers, one of which cost $75,000, making the vehicle prohibitively expensive. Then there's another Lexus whose gizmos are a bit sleeker, and finally one with Google-built tech.

The last two cars in the lineup are pod-car prototypes, each with progressively smaller sensors. Other than a tiny bubble-top laser scanner, the most recent iteration of Google Car has the bulk of its gadgetry hidden in the bodywork.

"There's no doubt that the auto industry at large has come to understand the importance of self-driving cars, but Google has a distinctive lead over other initiatives," says Thilo Koslowski, vice president and automotive practice leader at Gartner.

"Google's intense focus on pure technology gives it that pioneering and leadership role," he says.

It helps when you have rocket scientists on the team.

Before joining Google, Waydo — the development engineer — was busy helping three Rovers ramble around Mars for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"In many ways, this earthly environment is far more challenging because you're dealing with pedestrians and all sorts of other unknowns," she says. "Ultimately, I'm here because I believe in this tech," she says. "I believe it'll change the world."

NO CHANCING IT

Back here on Earth, Google Car — in our case, the Lexus with the $75,000 laser on the top — is annoying a white-haired man who pulls alongside with arms waiving. The Google Car had been waiting about four minutes at an intersection before finally deciding the coast was clear. A human might have taken a chance during a lesser break in traffic. Honking had ensued.

The drive provided other glimpses into an autonomous car future. Suffice to say, it's a cautious one. During one stretch of empty road, cars were blowing by the white gadget-loaded Lexus.

"That's because our car knows this is a school zone, and the max speed is 25 so it won't exceed that," says Brian Torcellini, who heads the driver team responsible for taking control of a Google Car if the situation should demand it.

Safety, in fact, is a big selling point for autonomous cars, and if they can "cut into even a percentage of the 92% of accidents that are caused by human error, people will demand this technology," says Gartner's Koslowski. Global regulators will have to fast track the technology, he predicts. (As of 2012, self-driving cars can be driven on California roads for testing purposes.)

A Google Car could also cut deeply into the number of drunken driving deaths by about 10,000 related deaths a year, says Ron Medford, who spent 10 years at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration before being named Google Car's safety director.

"But it's also important to remember these cars won't eliminate all crashes. Things happen. So people should be reasonable," Medford says.

The inevitable first car crash by a self-driving car is the gorilla in the room for this nascent technology, which will rely on a great deal of trust by consumers and regulators to become widespread.

Urmson agrees that autonomous car crashes are inevitable, but says that's where the legal system comes in. "If you buy a piece of tech and it says it'll do X and it does Y, and you used it correctly, that gets settled in courts. They'll be on the road and they won't be perfect, no engineered system is. But we're working hard to make things as perfect as they can be."

OBSTACLE DETECTED

Back on the street, our robotics-pumped Lexus is quietly trying to avoid any potential for a bang-up.

During one stretch, a delivery truck was protruding into our right-hand lane. What did Google Car do? It detected the obstacle — represented as a box on the computer sitting on Fairfield's lap — and edged ever so slightly toward the center stripe after checking that no other car was to our left.

"The biggest progress we've made after five years of doing this eight hours a day is dealing with the uncertainties created by construction," says Fairfield, noting that Google Car is programmed to follow new routes delineated by cones and detect stop signs held up by workers. "But sometimes, it doesn't quite know what's happening."

Such as the time a woman in a wheelchair darted into the road, wielding a broom and chasing a duck. What did Google Car do? Just what you or I might, it stared.

"The car simply stopped until it saw the road was clear," Fairfield says with a shrug. "It's a robot. It doesn't mind chilling."