Despite the flash, gee whiz and dazzle of Google, Uber and Tesla, it’s 110-year-old General Motors that may have a self-driving car ready first for consumers, VentureBeat reports.
And it won’t be all from Motown either. Venerable GM is using Bay Area technology and real estate to build its fleet and test its technology in real time.
The tech blog reports that GM’s Bolt EV is rolling out even more cars to test on the roads in San Francisco, Arizona and Detroit, as it eyes the market for debuting what could be the first self-driving car to come to market “in the near future.”
GM so far has a fleet of Bolt’s totaling around 180 testing in those three markets, a jump from the original 50 its began trying out initially. The car uses software from San Francisco’s Cruise Automation to keep its self-driving technology on track and then is sent to GM’s factories in Michigan to be assembled.
“The car has multiple cameras, and 40 sensors are installed across the vehicle. A radar system detects oncoming traffic. LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors on top of the car use lasers to make a three-dimensional map of the area when driving,” VentureBeat reports.
“With the 10.2-inch screen, you have the ability to watch your car drive from a bird’s eye view — seeing your car plus the area behind and around you — but only if you’re traveling at low speeds. The majority of Americans’ commute is 40 miles round trip, so you won’t have to worry about ‘plugging-in’ for days. The Bolt EV can last for 238 miles on a single charge.”
GM has said it will continue to test the cars to work out all the kinks before it rolls them out to consumers. But VentureBeat reports that the company has an internal goal to put the Bolt on the market “in the near future,” putting it in direct and heated competition with other players in the space like Google’s sister company Waymo, Uber Technologies and Tesla Motors.