在每月例行的自动驾驶汽车进展报告中，随着半自动驾驶系统（如特斯拉的自动驾驶仪）开始推向市场，谷歌本月对自动驾驶的状况进行了深入的探讨。自动驾驶汽车目前正在德克萨斯州的山景城（Mountain View）和奥斯汀（Austin）进行测试。这是一个有趣的阅读，深入到谷歌的决定，追求完全自主，即一辆车可以采取车轮的整个行程，而不是一个有限的系统，只能在某些情况下工作，如高速公路驾驶。

它的核心是：

We did spend some time thinking about ways we could build features to address what is often referred to as "The Handoff Problem" -- keeping drivers engaged enough that they can take control of driving as needed. The industry knows this is a big challenge, and they're spending lots of time and effort trying to solve this. One study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that drivers required somewhere between five and eight seconds to safely regain control of a semi-autonomous system. In a NHTSA study published in August 2015, some participants took up to 17 seconds to respond to alerts and take control of the the vehicle -- in that time they'd have covered more than a quarter of a mile at highway speeds. There's also the challenge of context -- once you take back control, do you have enough understanding of what's going on around the vehicle to make the right decision?

In the end, our tests led us to our decision to develop vehicles that could drive themselves from point A to B, with no human intervention. (We were also persuaded by the opportunity to help everyone get around, not just people who can drive.) Everyone thinks getting a car to drive itself is hard. It is. But we suspect it's probably just as hard to get people to pay attention when they're bored or tired and the technology is saying "don't worry, I've got this...for now."

换言之，谷歌认为，司机要在做乘客和积极驾驶车辆之间进行上下文切换，需要花费大量时间，因此最好让汽车从头到尾完成所有工作(有趣的是，谷歌最近的一项专利提出了一种控制自动驾驶汽车并将其交还给他人的方法，但许多关于未来完全自主汽车的设想仍然提出了一种方法，即在汽车无法破解时接管控制权。），谷歌还指出，一辆完全自主的汽车可以让不会开车的人四处走动，而这是目前拥有自动驾驶仪的特斯拉（Tesla）或明年配备超级巡航（Super Cruise）的凯迪拉克（Cadillacs）绝对做不到的。

撇开关于完全自主的争论不谈，这些月度报告的主要功能是讨论任**的撞车事故；到目前为止，谷歌过去报道的每一次车祸都是另一个司机的错。