Posted on 01/12/2018 4:36:18 PM PST by equaviator
Today, GM unveiled the first image of its upcoming autonomous fourth-generation Bolt EV-based vehicle – the “first without a steering wheel or pedal.”
The automaker also says that it filed a petition asking the DOT permission to deploy the vehicle as soon as next year.
The move represents an accelerated self-driving timeline for the company, which could potentially leapfrog most other companies working on the technology since the most common timeline is a commercial launch in 2020-2022.
The vehicle would represent the next generation of Cruise AV autonomous car based on the Bolt EV.
In June, GM announced the completion of the first batch of 130 Chevy Bolt EV autonomous prototypes at its Orion Assembly Plant located in Orion Township, Michigan...They are already using part of their fleet to carry Cruise employees “anywhere in San Francisco using their app” – an early version of the service they plan to offer to the public someday.
Although GM claims to be the 1st without a steering wheel or pedal, Google has demonstrated pedal-less, steeringwheel-less autonomous vehicles first as part of its Google X labs in 2014 and now part of its Waymo spinoff. Google has since added back steering wheels to its own vehicles and *steered* the organization to more as add-ons to existing vehicles, especially Lexus crossovers and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrids.
A few months later, they claimed to be ready to “mass produce” self-driving Chevy Bolt EVs and they announced an expansion of the test fleet to New York...In order to plead their case for the safety of their vehicle and submit their petition for the permission to deploy the vehicle, GM released a new “2018 Self-Driving Safety Report”.
The report explains the various passive and active safety features of the vehicle as well as all the redundant hardware.
I don’t want to see people getting too hopped up over these driver-less vehicles because they take the fun out of driving and I think there are millions of car owners who would agree. If the technology is supposed to be yet another one of those things that saves us from ourselves then I’m not interested. Driving a car is fun. Being driven in a car isn’t unless you’ve been invited to join in a limo party.
To a lot of people, perhaps most, driving is not fun, not after the initial few years of driving and after the novelty wears off.
Cars and trucks are just transportation, though there will be many who enjoy driving themselves.
I’m pretty sure that, if driverless vehicles prove to be safe and less expensive, and gives people a lot more free time to do other things, that eventually, nobody will miss the driver-involved vehicles. Even those that enjoy driving, will move on.
But, perhaps there will be a future for people-driven cars, where they can enjoy themselves, but on tracks and areas that are specifically set up for that kind of enjoyment.
If airplanes had been designed from the beginning to be easy to operate as everyday transportation, and if had also been affordable, that people would find that very difficult to give up too. But, the regular Joe and Jane out there don’t miss that at all, just like we don’t miss horseback riding or the horse-and-buggy. If we were to take away the horse-and-buggy from the Amish, they would be adversely affected, but they too will be taken off the roads, or the roads will be modified to give them their own lanes.
In any case, I’m pretty sure that as time passes, driverless vehicles will become the norm.
“as time passes, driverless vehicles will become the norm.
No offense but I hope you’re wrong. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
True. I was at fault for not addressing that earlier. I just jumped from the Drone idea to the Flying Car idea without shame.
Where does it end? Are airliners next? Where are my crash-free airplanes?...my banana peel-free sidewalks? There is no such thing as a risk-free America and there never will be.
No, I was just egging you on to see how far you were willing to go in answering a series of strictly rhetorical questions.
If you’re happy, I’m happy.
Like I said, glad to have helped.
Now, glad to have made you happy. ;)
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