SELF-DRIVING cars are only a couple of years away according to Google which will run a fleet of 100 test cars this year.

Speaking at the Automotive News World Congress annual conference in Detroit, Chris Urmson, director of Google’s self-driving car project, said: “We’re within a couple of years, probably within five years…” of seeing a fully autonomous car on public roads. “NHTSA could certainly reactively ban it, but we don’t think that they need to grant permission ahead of time.”

Bloomberg reports the California-based company plans a pilot programme in its home state with about 100 cars similar to the two-seat, egg-shaped prototypes it revealed last year, with a top speed of 25mph and no steering wheel.

Some of the automotive partners Google has worked with in developing its self-driving car include Robert Bosch, Continental AG, LG Electronics, ZF Lenksysteme, FRIMO Group, Prefix Corp and Roush Enterprises, Urmson said.

Google has reduced to the size of coffee cups the radar sensors and lasers its cars need to navigate roads by themselves, Urmson said.

“There’s a lot made about the fact we have this spinning, Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket of lasers on the roof of our car,” Urmson said. “It’s ugly, it’s too big, too expensive. We’ve always known that had to go.”

But Urmson said he does not expect Google to go into car manufacturing. He said: “We have some skills in making the self-driving technology but the automotive world has spent the last 100 years perfecting the process of building vehicles. We’re definitely not in the business of making cars.”