CollinsJAGUAR I-PACE: Google has unveiled its first all-electric vehicle for capturing Street View images.
The tech titan and Jaguar Land Rover announced today that they have collaborated to outfit an all-electric I-Pace SUV with the necessary equipment to capture Street View imagery and that the car has been deployed in Dublin, Ireland.
The I-Pace will also collect more general Google Maps data, as well as Aclima air quality sensors, as Google has done with its Street View cars for the better part of a decade.
The I-Pace will collect “street-by-street air quality” data in Dublin, measuring nitrogen dioxide, carbon dioxide, and fine particles. The data will be made available to the Dublin City Council by Google.
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Jaguar Land Rover and Google are not strangers to each other. Waymo, a sister company that began as an autonomous vehicle project within Google but was spun out in 2016, uses Jaguar I-Paces in its self-driving car tests.
“We’re always looking for ways to improve our fleet of vehicles, and there is the potential to expand our EV fleet size in the future, but no updates to share at this time,” a Google spokesperson said when asked if the company plans to use any more electric cars for Street View.
The $70,000 I-Pace, which debuted in 2018, travels approximately 246 miles on a single charge (after a software update increased the range in late 2019).
Collins