Google today announced its own design for self-driving cars, which will drive people around without a steering wheel or pedals. It's the latest project from Google X, the company's skunkworks group headed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. 
 
 Two people, no drivers 
 
 The company has already shown off its own self-driving technology, which retrofits existing vehicles made by Toyota and Lexus. However this new version, which was announced by Brin at the Recode conference, is a new design that fits two people, and is driven entirely by computer using a variety of on-board computers and sensors. 
 
 Google says the program is currently in a prototype phase, but that it plans to build around 100 early versions of the vehicles for testing this summer. Those cars, which are reminiscent of a Fiat 500 mixed with Playmobil toys, will initially include manual controls in case something goes wrong, just like the company's current self-driving car program. After a pilot program in California, Google says it will develop a broader program with the help of partners, presumably for commercial use. 
 
 Google's overarching goal with the self-driving car program has been to develop vehicles that are safer than the ones driven by humans. 33,000 Americans die from auto accidents each year, with that number ballooning to 1.2 million worldwide, something Google believes it can trim by as much as 90 percent using a technology that can sense and react to things faster than humans. 
 
 It uses off the shelf parts, for now 
 
 This latest prototype was made using off-the-shelf car parts, Brin says. That includes heavy use of foam as well as an electric motor. The company would not divulge specific partners on the project, short of saying that it's been building prototypes for some time, and still has work to do before you see these hauling people around. 
 
 Word that Google was working on building its own self-driving car reference design leaked out last August, with a report from The Information, however the company's progress was described as being only at the discussion level with contract manufacturers. Even so, the description of providing "robo-taxis" for people to get rides on demand was spot on. Brin essentially confirmed that, describing the need for these smaller, self-driving vehicles as incredibly important for people underserved by typical transit options, especially those who don't live in densely-packed urban areas. 
 
 "The reason I'm super excited about these prototypes is the ability to change the world and the community around you," Brin said. ||||| Google has finally built its own car from scratch. And it looks like a gondola with wheels. 
 
 The two-seater prototype vehicle is Google’s reimagination of what the modern automobile should look and feel like if you took the human out of the transportation equation and designed something solely to chauffeur passengers from point A to B. 
 
 “The project is about changing the world for people who are not well-served by transportation today,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said at the inaugural Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. 
 
 The car — which was conceived and designed by Google, unlike the ones it previously modified — lacks many of the trappings of a normal car, and that includes three of the most essential parts. It has no steering wheel, no accelerator pedal and no brake pedal. 
 
 The company that designed the world’s simplest home page also decided to lose the mirrors, the backseat, the glove compartment and the stereo. 
 
 What’s left are lots of sensors, and a transplant of the self-driving software system Google has built to use on the Toyota Priuses and Lexus SUVs it has trained to drive on highways and city streets over the past five years. 
 
 Google gave Re/code an advance look and test ride ahead of its Tuesday evening unveiling by Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the inaugural Code Conference. 
 
 It may seem like a silly thing to point out, but even though Google’s self-driving cars have racked up 700,000 miles of testing, they don’t actually drive independently. The company said the cars can handle most situations (well, when they are loaded with a map of the roads and it’s not snowing), but every time they are sent out on the road they are carefully monitored by two Google employees who are ready to take control at any moment. 
 
 The new car has no such human safety net. It’s entirely driven by computers. To head off any concerns of malfunctioning robots hurtling you toward imminent doom, Google has made the car look cute and cuddly from the outset. 
 
 Because of the compact, round frame of the prototype with built-in sensor mounts, Google says the car has virtually no blind spots. 
 
 It also has newer and better sensors that give it the ability to see what’s going on up to a distance of two football fields. For example, on the most current version of the retrofitted self-driving Lexus, a mounted laser has about a 12-degree field of view that it uses to essentially zoom in on details of points of interest. On the prototype car, the lasers have full 360-degree views. “It’s going from looking just in front, like a flashlight, to a lantern all around the car,” said self-driving car project director Chris Urmson. 
 
 The prototype car is clearly closer to what Google wants to see sold on the market, but Urmson insisted that Google has no plans to sell the cars itself. “We’re looking for friends and partners to make it happen,” he said. 
 
 As of May 20, California requires a test driver to be in a vehicle and able to take over the controls, but Google is expecting a follow-up regulation later this year that will allow manufacturers to apply for permits to operate fully autonomous vehicles. 
 
 Google wants to get these cars on the streets ASAP. The company plans to start testing them in Mountain View, Calif., later this summer, Urmson said. He hopes to build at least 100 prototypes over the next two years, and get them into the hands of volunteer drivers — or nondrivers, as it were — as soon as the system is evaluated to be safe. 
 
 Safety is the unifying principle behind the engineering and design of Google’s car. That applies to the size, shape, materials and even the lack of horsepower. The car is limited to a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour. That speed covers most driving in most cities, Urmson said. It’s legal to drive 25 miles per hour on a street with a 35 mile per hour limit. And the slower a car is going, the less kinetic energy is involved in a crash, so there’s less potential for destruction. 
 
 “We imagine at some point there will be an accident with one of these vehicles, so we’ve designed the front end to be soft,” said Ron Medford, director of safety for the project and former U.S. Department of Transportation administrator in charge of vehicle safety research and regulations. 
 
 The front of the car is built with foam, and the windshield is flexible to reduce the injury the car might inflict if it collided with pedestrians, bikers or anything else, Medford said. 
 
 But what if the car malfunctions? No, a steering wheel and brake are not going to magically materialize from the dashboard. Instead, there are redundant mechanical systems built in. The car has two sets of steering and braking systems, so if one fails the other can take over, Medford said. 
 
 And does it have to look so cute, like the lovechild of a gondola and golf cart? A spokeswoman cautioned that the car will likely be much more refined and less cute when it’s ready for mass consumption. “We wanted it to be friendly,” Urmson said. “We thought about what would you feel comfortable with in your neighborhood. You can imagine, at the other end, a black SUV with blacked-out windows driving down your street — that’s not friendly.” 
 
 The emotional side of product development has never been Google’s strong suit. Sure, it has a colorful logo, but this is a company that groks algorithms way better than humans. But it’s hard to anticipate how people will feel about self-driving cars — both riding in them, and seeing them on the street — until they hit the road. 
 
 “We need to understand that for real,” Urmson said. “How do people use them and what do they want out of them?” 
 
 Spoken like a robot engineer.
– Google has turned Toyotas and Lexus SUVs into self-driving vehicles, but its latest car takes the driverless project to the next level. The company built the bug-like contraption from the ground up, and it has no steering wheel, gas pedal, or—perhaps most worryingly for some—brakes (though there is an "e-stop button," the New York Times notes). But the car's also got improved sensors that allow it to "see" to a distance of two football fields, and Google says it's essentially free from blind spots. Recode dubs it "a gondola with wheels," while the Verge sees it as some kind of Fiat-Playmobil hybrid. The two-seater "is about changing the world for people who are not well-served by transportation today," says Google co-founder Sergey Brin. As for riding in it, John Markoff describes the experience in the New York Times as "a cross between riding in my office elevator … and memories of riding in the Disneyland Tomorrowland people mover as a child." Google argues that self-driving cars, with reaction speeds faster than humans', could reduce driving deaths by some 90%, the Verge reports. The benefits, per Google's blog: "Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History."