Last November we were driving down the freeway near Davis, coming to the end of an epic road trip, when we passed what we thought was one of Google's camera cars, what looked like a combined LIDAR and camera unit spinning away on the roof...

...and marypcb photographed it (as I had to keep my hands on the wheel) as we passed it...

Now, nearly a year later we know just what it was - one of the Google/Stanford robot cars, on what must have been a fairly early test drive. The human driver must have had a lot of confidence in his robot partner, as he'd taken a child along for a ride...

Here's a shot of the robot from our rearview mirror.



Davis, California
November 2009