Google will extend the road tests of its self-driving cars to the wet weather conditions of a small city in Washington State. The rainy streets and rolling hills of the Pacific Northwest city of Kirkland near Seattle will test the performance of the driverless cars. Google's parent company Alphabet announced on February 3, Wednesdays that it would add the third city to the autonomous vehicles' testing regions of California and Texas.       

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Rain can cause many problems for self-driving cars. They include impeding the functioning of onboard cameras and radar sensors, and increasing glare and reflections, according to The Guardian.

Driverless cars also have problems with steep hills. That is because the sensors point to the sky when climbing up, and to the ground when descending.

Google said that it wants its cars to have various driving experiences, including new environments, road conditions, and traffic patterns. It is testing a modified hybrid Lexus SUV. However, the company might test smaller prototypes in future months.

Google's first tests have been within a few square miles in Kirkland. Its goal is to make detailed street maps.

Another benefit of Google testing self-driving cars in Washington State is that it has no special rules for them unlike California. Therefore, it is not required to secure a permit or collect data about tech failures.

A proposed bill in Washington would create a special testing ground for autonomous vehicles. The law would make the robotic cars exempt from all standard rules of the road including a human driver.

Washington's new facilities would be on a United States military facility that includes over 85,000 acres. It is also 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) from Google's Kirkland office.

The Guardian has also seen documents showing the Federal communications Commission (FCC) gave Google permission in late January to test its car radars at four new places in the U.S. One will probably be Ann Arbor, Michigan due to the company's recent ad for a product manager for driverless cars.

Google has been testing autonomous cars for several years. That includes six years near its headquarters in Mountain View, California. It has also been testing its robot cars in Austin, Texas since summer 2015, according to Reuters.