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Ford's Driverless Cars Will Whizz By In California Next Year

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Dec 18, 2015 11:36 AM EST

There will be an exciting, new Ford on your California roads early in 2016. And it will be all yours---without even a driver.

This prototype has four light detection and ranging sensors, that would beam around to scan everything around it, according to PC World.

It is the first one after the driverless test in "Mcity", the fake town designed by the University of Michigan to put its autonomous vehicles to test, according to HNGN.

So Ford will be the next in line in a number of automakers testing fully autonomous vehicles on the roads. Google's self-driving vehicle is driving around the bend in Palo Alto, the hub of the car's research facility. Tesla, Mercedez Benz, Volkswagen, Delphi, Bosch, Nissan and Cruise Automation are other automakers who are already making prototypes too.

Ford's Fusion got a license for its autonomous vehicle, in order to hit California roads during the state's Autonomous Vehicle Testing Program. It is a small fleet that will first see action in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. There will be two passengers in every car. One of them would oversee the driving controls while the other one would monitor its sensors, The Los Angeles Times  reported.

After completing the test drives, Ford hopes to roll out the "Level 4" autonomous car that does not require drivers even if there is an emergency on the road.

"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," said James McBride, founder of Ford's autonomous vehicle program.

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