I don’t really think it’s necessary to build a faux downtown to give drivereless cars a test run, but that’s the plan in Michigan. Just seems an unnecessary intermediary step considering that Google already has its models on the real roads. From John Gallagher at the Detroit Free Press:

“As vehicles learn to drive themselves minus human control, the place they’ll learn is on the University of Michigan’s north campus in Ann Arbor.

Today, Gov. Rick Snyder and other officials touted a new $6.5-million, 32-acre site to be built on U-M’s north campus as a test center for technologies for autonomous, or self-driving, vehicles.

Peter Sweatman, director of U-M’s Transportation Research Institute, said this fake downtown will feature building facades, parked vehicles, traffic signals, a tunnel, bicycle lanes and other realistic elements of an actual Michigan streetscape.

The idea, Sweatman said, is to test self-driving technology in realistic conditions that can be measured and controlled with precision.

‘The future of the automotive industry is connected and automated, and we’re going to create that future right here in Michigan,’ Sweatman said during a news conference with Snyder at the North American International Auto Show.”