The world is heading inexorably towards ‘drive themselves’ cars, now called ‘autonomous’ vehicles, that will take you where you wish to go, and in safety, it is claimed.
The technology is quite simple, where the vehicle takes on board ‘messages’ from other cars, pedestrians, traffic lights, dogs and drunks on the roads and the on-board computer center has control of the autonomous vehicle, taking into consideration all external factors to avoid any accident or incident.
Ford, for example has self-parking technology, which owners are very slowly coming to accept. Autonomous driving is merely an extension of that.
GM’s Volt.
Promising a boots and all approach, Mary Barra indicates GM wants to redefine the future of personal mobility, and doing so will transform the company.
“It really demonstrates a different mindset than what you might expect from the auto industry, really a Silicon Valley mindset,” she told investors and analysts Thursday at GM’s Global Business Conference. “We’re going to step things up. We’re going to experiment, we’re going to get customer input, we’re going to do it in a cost-effective way. If it works, we’re going to scale it.”
Barra plans to use a test fleet of Volts to more quickly develop autonomous vehicles as it moves testing from professional drivers and test tracks into more real-world scenarios.
Self-driving cars are seen in the long run as potentially disruptive to auto industry sales. Shared autonomous cars could displace nine regular cars. The prediction is that carmakers such as GM may have to slash production and get smaller.
