Google Gets A Patent For Their Driverless Cars

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been given a patent for their driverless car technology. The patent covers a method for cars to go into autonomous mode and for finding parking spots. The patent was approved on December 13th. Google has first disclosed their self-driving car in October 2010, which was in an advanced stage of development at the time.

The real hurdle that remains is that individual states must give permission for the driverless cars. Google’s driverless cars have been able to go about 1,000 miles without the need for a driver to take control thus far. An aggregate of 1 million miles was necessary for the Google to give the vehicles final approval to take the next major step. So far Google’s vehicles have driven over 200,000 miles without an accident.

The patent shows a photo of a scenario where the car would stop and transition from automatic mode to a user-controlled mode.

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