Self-driving version of Chevy Bolt EV could enter ride-sharing fleets by 2019
General Motors wants to add a fully autonomous car – one with no steering or pedals – to its commercial ride-sharing fleets in 2019, and it’s currently seeking approval from the U.S. government to do so.
GM calls the Cruise AV the “first production-ready vehicle designed from the start without a steering wheel, pedals or other unnecessary manual controls,” though the four-door seems largely to be a Chevrolet Bolt EV with an sensor- and radar-clad exterior and a de-contented interior.
What was once the driver’s seat in the Bolt becomes the left front passenger seat in the Cruise AV; what was once the instrument panel gets blanked out instead. The Cruise AV will also be able to open its own doors for passengers who can’t, and will have accommodations built in for visually- or hearing-impaired customers, reports Reuters.
Before the Cruise AV can enter widespread service, though, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will have to alter 16 safety rules—and GM’s said it petitioned the organization January 11 to make those changes. Individual U.S. states will then also have to make similar alterations or grant the company waivers, though GM notes seven states have already altered their rules to be friendly to self-driving cars like the Cruise AV.
The Cruise AV is powered by the fourth generation of GM’s self-driving technologies, and relies on 21 radars, 16 cameras, and five lidars, which are essentially radars that use light instead of radio waves. However, the automaker still plans to limit the use of the car to pre-mapped urban areas.
It also plans to restrict the fleet to operation under a GM-owned ride-sharing service—that is, the company has no plans yet to sell a Cruise AV to customers. “GM wants to control its own self-driving fleet partly because of the tremendous revenue potential it sees in selling related services, from e-commerce to infotainment, to consumers riding in those vehicles,” explains Reuters, possibly netting “several hundred thousands of dollars” over a vehicle’s lifetime versus the, say, $30,000 it earns selling a car.
GM isn’t alone in trying to get in on the “robo-taxi” industry. Ford, Uber, and Google’s Waymo have all been testing or plan to soon begin testing self-driving car prototypes with aspirations to launch vehicles or vehicle services to the public within the next three years.
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