Ford Motor Company is now the latest major automaker to be testing and driving autonomous vehicles on the West Coast roads.
Reports say the auto giant has started testing a Ford Fusion hybrid on a course track in Palo Alto. Soon, several of these 2016 Fusion models will be driving around the streets of San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
James McBride, the founder of Ford's autonomous vehicle program, said that in the beginning of the road testing, the Fusion will have one operator and one systems expert, the Los Angeles Times reports. The operator will closely observe and supervise the driving controls while the systems expert will monitor the Fusion's sensors.
He added that Ford is aiming to eventually release a "Level 4" autonomous car, which won't rely on a driver's input even during emergencies.
McBride said, "We've always taken the approach that we want the car to be able to handle any scenario a human would, and not suddenly throw the driving back into the lap of the driver."
Ford is not the first car company that has received California permits to operate autonomous cars in the state, and it's not the pioneer in driverless car technology either. The automaker joins other well-known car brands, including Volkswagen, Tesla Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Honda and Nissan in the driverless game.
Ford CEO Mark Fields stated before that the company's venture in the state is expected to draw in top talent in car technology.
Aside from that, Ford's interest in the region is partly geographical, according to McBride.
On the roads of Palo Alto, Google's driverless cars are a common sight. In line with this, Google Research X Center is also found therein, PC World reports.
The Ford Fusion model is characterized with four LIDAR (Light detection and ranging) sensors. These sensors will carry out 360-degress scan on the area, with the help of the rotating mirrors inside. Prototype independent cars commonly use scanners to match the images on a file of pre-recorded images to locate where the car is in a particular time.
Autonomous cars have been the subject of a lot of talks lately, and it is a result of technology bringing the driverless cars into reality.