- General Motors announced on Sunday that self-driving vehicles could be in showrooms by the end of the decade.
- Vehicles that "partially drive themselves" may debut by the middle of the decade, the automaker predicted.
- GM said the autonomous vehicles are designed to "completely" take over "driving duties."
DETROIT — In just a few short years, the driver may go the way of the rumble seat. General Motors announced on Sunday that self-driving vehicles could be in showrooms by the end of the decade.
GM's bold prediction may comfort some drivers obsessed with safety or completely freak out those worried about turning control of the steering wheel over to a machine.
The prediction was noteworthy because it laid out a fairly specific timetable for autonomous driving by one of the world's biggest automakers.
"The technologies we're developing will provide an added convenience by partially or even completely taking over the driving duties," said Alan Taub, GM vice president of global research and development in a speech at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress in Orlando, Florida.
He added: "The primary goal, though, is safety. Future generation safety systems will eliminate the crash altogether by interceding on behalf of drivers before they're even aware of a hazardous situation."
Such vehicles will be equipped with sensors, radars, portable communication devices, GPS and cameras, said GM.
"Combined with digital maps, the same technologies will allow the driver to let the vehicle concentrate on driving while he does something else," said GM in a statement.
Taub did not address what an autonomous car would cost.
GM's prediction comes just days after Nissan introduced acceleration suppression technology.
Inside Line says: Reason to pop the champagne corks or the lid off the aspirin bottle?
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kernals12 says:
04:41 PM, 10/18/2011
This I could only see working on highways and city streets, on the country roads where we enthusiasts have fun, the car couldn't possibly calculate every single possible variable, we humans aren't as good as making decisions, but computers can't find nearly as many decisions that need to be made
k55 says:
09:57 AM, 10/18/2011
"GM Says Self-Driving Vehicles Are on Horizon"
How much do you want to bet that women will still find a way to cause an accident. Any takers ? Anyone? Put me down for $25.
70ss454_man says:
09:28 PM, 10/17/2011
Anyone seen I, Robot?
gaiakai says:
06:41 PM, 10/17/2011
This really is the perfect time to get one of the more pure, driver-oriented, gas devouring performance vehicles.. I guess.
b_thunder says:
03:06 PM, 10/17/2011
GM should concentrate on building cars that can compete with Korean brands, and not make annoying sci-fi predictions about the future of transportation.
How's that EV1 project doing? I hear that EV 2.0 (aka Volt) has been outsold by Leaf 3 to 1.
Hey GM, first try to move up from selling most of your cars to the rental fleet to selling cars directly to the consumers, then focus on making $$$ so that the taxpayers won't have to bail you out again. And please, please, please leave the development of this crazy and crazy-costly driverless technology to the techno-crazy japanese and the engineering-wise unbeatable germans.
miscpippa says:
02:15 PM, 10/17/2011
DRIVING IS MONKEY WORK!
themanthedog says:
01:09 PM, 10/17/2011
Does this mean chauffeurs will be out of work? Taxi cab drivers out of work? Eventually truck drivers out of work along with bus drivers and garbage men?
tsy says:
01:08 PM, 10/17/2011
It's amazing how bad some drivers really are, and this would be a great answer for them. I'm also guessing it would help traffic immensely if there is no accident to cause the traffic in the first place and all the cars on the road are coordinated by a central traffic control computer.
This would truly make the automobile an appliance.
Does this mean computers would now be doing all of Inside Line's road tests?????
ddark13 says:
11:19 AM, 10/17/2011
which im sure will be taken care of due to lawsuit liability
ddark13 says:
11:19 AM, 10/17/2011
when looking around at all the bad drivers on the road, i agree with this option
however, it has to be implimented intelligently (driver can override, failsafe systems, etc etc)