Google: Forget Bing, We’re Taking on Toyota

Last October, Google revealed that it had been quietly driving self-piloted cars around the San Francisco Bay area. Without so much as a press announcement, the cars had logged about 140,000 miles around California highway system riding during regular traffic hours alongside unsuspecting motorists.

The only reason the secret project ever came to light is that internet chatter started to heat up after a few viewers could swear they saw a Prius cruising the freeway with a funny satellite attachment on its roof and the dude sitting behind the wheel relaxing, his hands nowhere near the wheel. The driver was simply not driving this car, people insisted. There was a ghost car on California’s roads!

Before it turned into a full-blown conspiracy, Google granted an in-depth story to the New York Times wherein it showed off what it had been developing: A fully-automated, self-driving car that runs on internet and artificial intelligence, developed by A.I. expert Sebastian Thrun, whom Google had poached from Stanford University.

Now, less than a year later after the mind-bending invention was unveiled, Google is lobbying for legislation to make the cars street legal. And they’ve locked their sights on the state of Nevada, focusing on two bills that would legalize self-driving cars in the state. According to the New York Times “Google hired David Goldwater, a lobbyist based in Las Vegas, to promote the two measures,” which should come up for a vote in June.

Nevertheless, it appears driverless cars remain illegal in Sin City’s host state for the moment. The Times notes the legislation Google is lobbying for “would make Nevada the first state where [the cars] could be legally operated on public roads.”