GM Entering the Self-Driving Vehicle Mix

General Motors has decided to throw its hat into the self-driving vehicle game. Let’s see how they plan to get there.
Maybe setting a deadline and announcing a specific date for a particular technology isn’t a good thing. In reports only a year ago, Ford announced it would put vehicles on the road that had no steering wheels or pedals by the year 2021, which seemed like a far-fetched goal, but that allowed the competition to put dates on their calendars that were much sooner to accomplish the same goal. Waymo, the Google arm that offers self-driving vehicles, has already built a selection of vehicles that are built without pedals or steering wheels for the drive.

While there’s still plenty of testing that needs to be done, there is one more company that’s ready to build and test cars on the roads that have no steering wheels and no pedals in them at all. The plan for this company is to put these cars on the roads by 2019 in order to start gathering the data needed to see if this technology can be offered and handle every situation that can be experienced on the road. The company that’s ready to make this happen and begins to have these self-driving cars on the road is GM.

The Next Version of the Bolt EV

One of the newest EV models on the market is the Chevrolet Bolt EV which is the first affordable model to offer us the range that is offered in this car. It appears to now be the car that will be fitted with the software and hardware to drive itself without a driver. This car will be transitioned to make its way to testing without a steering wheel or pedals because the car doesn’t need that to drive and could be the next model to head out on the roads without any person aboard at all.
GM claims to have made this car ready to head out on public roads without any steering wheels or pedals. Recently, they have filed a petition with the federal government in order to gain permission to put vehicles on the road at some point in the next year to begin to have cars on the road that have no human backup drivers and no one to be able to take over the controls if something goes wrong. If approved, this could be a huge step forward for self-driving cars to begin to see them on the roads in the form we expect for the future.
The plan from GM is to begin to carry passengers in these cars with the use of the Cruise Automation driving services that are being offered by this company. We aren’t sure where these vehicles will be offered if this is approved, but it certainly will be an interesting program. Imagine hailing a ride from this ride sharing program in the future and a car shows up with no driver, no backup driver, and no steering wheel or pedals for the drive. This might be one of the most interesting moves forward in the self-driving part of the automotive industry. We’ll look to see what other GM and Chevrolet models might make the leap to autonomous driving.