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Google Self-Driving Cars Roll Into Washington State

 & Stephanie Mlot Contributor

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Google is driving its autonomous cars into North Kirkland, Wash., which is now home to a handful of self-driving Lexus RX450h SUVs.

Nextcar Bug art"After self-driving 1.4 million miles, we're ready to give our cars more experience driving new environments, traffic patterns, and road conditions," the company wrote in a Google+ post, like those found in the rainy and hilly Pacific Northwest.

The tech titan has been working on self-driving car technology for more than five years, and introduced its own Little Tikes Cozy Coupe-like prototype vehicle in 2014. Since then, the prototype has traveled millions of miles on California and Texas roads, but in Washington, Google will rely on its souped-up Lexus SUVs.

According to KomoNews.com, the SUVs will have human drivers behind the wheel to take over if necessary.

"We'd love to hear what you think, about how we're driving, and what you would want to do with a self-driving car," Google said, pointing readers to google.com/selfdrivingcar

Earlier this week, Google revealed that its autonomous vehicles drive 3 million simulated miles every day—the equivalent of circling the equator five times every hour. Supplementing real-world tests, the virtual drives allow engineers to add new capabilities and refine the cars' driving skills; before rolling out any changes to its fleet, the company first tests them in the virtual environment.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.

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Stephanie Mlot

Stephanie Mlot

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  • B.A. in Journalism & Public Relations with minor in Communications Media from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP)
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