Posted on 01/15/2018 12:04:54 PM PST by Enlightened1
Detroit (AFP) - Regulators will "carefully and responsibly" review General Motors' request to test an autonomous car without a steering wheel, US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said Sunday.
"It is now coming to the stage with the rapid advancement of self-driving technology that this request is now a reality," Chao said on the sidelines of the Detroit Auto Show.
"So we will view the petition carefully and responsibly."
GM on Friday unveiled the Cruise AV, an autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals, announcing it had asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to exempt it from a number of federal standards that cannot be met with a driverless car.
GM executives have said they planned to introduce a large-scale fleet of self-driving taxis by 2019, a timeframe some analysts consider ambitious.
GM released images of the Cruise AV and video of the interior with a strikingly spacious windshield devoid of a steering wheel.
"It's quite a striking image when people see it for the first time," GM president Dan Ammann told AFP on the sidelines of a GM event Saturday.
"I think people will want to engage with the technology and understand it and experience it," Ammann said.
"But I think what's really most powerful about what the technology can offer is an increase in safety on the road. And once people understand that and see and experience it, we think the adoption will be there."
"Its hard to generalize" about whether the public is ready for autonomous cars, Ammann said. "Some people are more than ready. And other people will be watching and seeing how it evolves."
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Just a moment... Just a moment... I’ve just picked up a fault in the AE-35 unit. It’s going to go 100% failure within 72 hours.
Every GM and government official who signs off on anything like this should be made to suffer the same fate as anyone hurt by it.
In the movie, “The Big Bus” there’s a near-disaster with the soda machines and Stockard Channing. But that’s another story....
One delightfully odd side effect of self-driving cars:
You may not need to park it, just tell it to circle the block until you need it (assuming sufficient energy). Imagine _herds_ of these things crawling around, say, NYC as energy costs will be far cheaper than actually parking them - just let it meander the lowest-energy aimless path until “Hey Siri, bring my car here” multiplied by thousands of vehicles.
That's actually a great question. Why should I have to buy insurance for a Ford or GM operating system I did not build or design or have any control of? Seems to me THEY have complete liability if the thing causes an accident.
“You may not need to park it.”
Hope no one needs an ambulance or police.
I would say that GM will responsible for just about any accident one of those cars ever gets into. If they are not willing to sell the car with Lifetime insurance included then they are not so confident in their car.
THIS is the DUMBEST IDEA EVER!!! Even the damn monorails have someone in them with control!! No freaking way would I ever get in one of those. Call me old-fashioned.
Both.
This is clearly GM angling for some sort of bragging rights. Whether or not the technology is ready for this step (and that’s very debatable) but public most certainly is not. I’d hate to be a GM salesman trying to make quota with these.
So someone who the government decides is in the way, gets into their car and someone hacks it and drives it off a cliff or bridge, or some such other convenient *accident*.
Oooops, must have been human error.
The driver committed *suicide* because we all know these cars are safe and can’t be hacked.
An SUV loaded with lenses came down my (Florida) street about two weeks ago. The logo on its side said "Apple". What's that about?
Train automation is more of a union issue than a technology one.
These cars basically default to “don’t hit anything”, which is pretty easy to do. Combined with “high definition maps” they can even follow a specific lane on a snow covered freeway. They classify most of what they see, including people and some other animals, and can move to a state/speed to anticipate an action, like somebody stepping into the road.
To begin with these cars would probably be limited to specific areas they can handle. There are still certain things they have a hard time with but in general will have a much better safety record than people. Road deaths will drop sharply which is why the NHTSA is playing ball...
Intriguing thought. But it would be far easier to have a fleet of driverless taxis (driverless Uber’s) in the cities.
Your scenario won’t happen because cities will pass “congestion pricing” making it horrendously expensive to bring your private auto into the city. These are in effect today in London, Stockholm, Singapore, Milan, and Gothenburg. In London, the congestion charge is £11.50 plus a “toxicity charge” of an extra £10 charge if you drive an older or more polluting car or van.
They trying to ;put “The Club” folks out of business? Maybe they will develop a steering “wheels” locking device....like the boot....
With the integrated Homeland Security Voice Monitoring System listening for anti-collectivist comments, the car can drive you straight to the internment camp without disturbing local police from their donut runs. :)
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