Google’s driverless cars could soon be sitting in London’s 4MPH rush-hour gridlock

With Google expanding its series of test locations for its driverless car trials in the US, most recently taking them to Washington State. Nevertheless if Sky News is correct, the UK capital wants in on the action.

According to the report, the Department for Transport (DfT) has spoken to Google more than half a dozen times over the course of the last three years, including just a few weeks ago to see if the company would carry out tests in London.

“It is still very early days but we would be keen for trials to happen in London whenever Google are ready to move them into other countries,” Deputy Mayor for Transport Isabel Dedring told Sky.

Exactly where or how the cars would be tested in London remains to be seen. With London average speeds down to 14.8 MPH, and below 4MPH on some routes in rush-hour, they wouldn’t be able to rack up the hundreds of miles per day that are managed in the US testing locations.

There also appears to be some mismatch between the direction the UK is moving in for driverless cars, versus the rules Google would like to see put into place.

➤ UK Could Host Google Driverless Car Trials [Sky News via Engadget]