GM is ready and wants to start testing their autonomous cars on a road near you. Hopefully they have the technology perfected enough to where innocent people do not die > > From AW > > General Motors President Dan Ammann urged more local and state governments to allow testing of autonomous vehicles on public streets, saying doing so is the only way to ensure they will be ready for public use. > > "To make autonomous vehicles the best they can be and the safest they can be, we really need to be testing on public streets," Ammann said during an address to the Economic Club of Chicago at the Chicago Auto Show. "It can be limited to a geo-fenced area, but it needs to be public streets in a real world environment." > > Ammann said the development of autonomous vehicles is in the public interest, citing the numerous safety and quality of life benefits they can produce. > > GM has invested heavily in the development of self-driving vehicles, most notably buying the autonomous tech startup Cruise Automation last year, reportedly for $1 billion. Using Cruise technology, GM has been testing self-driving Bolt electric vehicles on some public streets in California, Arizona and Michigan. > > "At some point -- it's going to be sooner than people think -- we will deploy our electric vehicles, still with a backup driver, into a ride-share fleet," Ammann said. "We will use that fleet to accumulate all the data we need to convince ourselves and regulators that we are ready to go driverless." > > GM's push into the autonomous space comes as the company adapts to emerging mobility trends that threaten to undermine automakers' traditional business models, Ammann said. The automaker has invested in ride-hailing service Lyft Inc. and has launched the Maven and Cadillac Book vehicle-sharing services. > > Still, GM's most profitable business remains manufacturing and selling vehicles, particularly pickups, crossovers and SUVs. Ammann said that will not be changing any time soon, even as the company continues to invest in sharing services and autonomous vehicles. > > "As the part of the business that makes most of our money remains intact, it will help us to pursue other areas that will become increasingly important in the future," Ammann said. "We've created this really interesting intersection between ride share, deep software capability and massive industrial manufacturing scale and the know-how to create cars." > > Ammann said while it is "self evident" that U.S. infrastructure needs investments, GM would not wait on those investments to take place before deploying autonomous vehicles. President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to invest in the nation's infrastructure. > > "The approach that we've taken is, actually, we can't wait for that," Ammann said. "We need to make sure that the technology is able to work and be deployed in the current environment so that we're not dependent upon some change or investment in infrastructure in order to do what we want to do here." > > In response to a question regarding Trump's repeated calls on U.S. automakers to invest domestically, Ammann noted GM's recent investments in American plants and said the company would like to continue investing in them moving forward, especially if the Trump administration pursues "strong" economic policies. > > "Anything that makes the economy good is good for business generally, not just our business," he said. > > View the attachments for this post at:
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