Google's Self-Driving Car Can't Navigate Heavy Rain Or Most Roads

Apparently the famous Google self-driving car isn't that close to giving us hands-free transportation after all.

While Google's fleet has safely driven more than 700,000 miles, the autonomous model relies so heavily on maps and detailed data that it can't yet drive itself in 99 percent of the country, according to an MIT Technology Review report.

"The public seems to think that all of the technology issues are solved" with Google's self-driving vehicle, said Steven Shladover, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies. "But that is simply not the case."

Chris Urmson, director of the Google car team, has volunteered details on the car's limits. He hopes the car will be ready by the time his 11-year-old is 16, or old enough to drive in the state of California.

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