With hopes of speeding development of self-driving cars, General Motors has acquired a small software company that’s been testing vehicles on the streets of San Francisco.
The Detroit automaker says it purchased Cruise Automation, a 40-person firm that was founded just three years ago.
The move, coupled with GM’s in-house research, should help the company in its race with Google and others to have autonomous cars start transporting people on public roadways.
GM wouldn’t give a timetable for rolling out the technology, but President Dan Ammann said it would happen as soon as the company can demonstrate that the cars are ready.
“It’s our view that driverless technology will be demonstrably safer than the human driver,” Ammann said in a telephone interview.
Cruise Automation, along with Google, is among the few companies with permits from the state of California to test the cars, said Kyle Vogt, the company founder and CEO. The company is working to tackle the biggest obstacles to autonomous cars — seeing the lane lines in bad weather and integrating data from cameras and other sensors so the cars make the right decisions on the road, Vogt said. “I agree that’s a challenge,” he said. “Looking at lane markers isn’t going to get you there.”
Cruise reported one crash to the state Department of Motor Vehicles in which an autonomous car rear-ended a city of San Francisco parking enforcement vehicle. Vogt said the car’s backup human driver had taken control of the vehicle when it crashed.
GM wouldn’t disclose the purchase price of deal, which was announced Friday. It said all Cruise Automation employees will join GM and work as a separate unit, and there are plans to hire more people.
It’s GM’s third high-profile venture this year in new mobility. The company has invested $500 million in the ride-sharing company Lyft and it has started a car-sharing service in Ann Arbor, Michigan that it plans to expand to other metro areas.
The Associated Press contributed this article.
IMO, “driverless” cars should only be used as a punishment for drunken driving or similar offenses involving injury to others in their liberty or property, after appropriate sentencing by a capable judge.
To most Americans, cars represent freedom…the freedom to go when and where you please(other than military bases or other restricted areas, of course).
Mark my words, when these things are “perfected”(which i very much doubt; freezing rain or snow is VERY likely to either damage the cameras or render them inoperable, or even a driving thunderstorm’s rain) will be used as tools to restrict or eliminate freedom – and since they’re computer-controlled, what can a hacker do? Or worse, what can gov’t agents do if you piss them off?
What was the name of that guy – a reporter – who was about to release a lot of info on D’OweBama, whose car suddenly accelerated to high speed and hit a tree, killing him? There’s been a good deal of speculation that his car’s computer was hacked, the gas control and braking modules screwed with.
Agree to driverless vehicles, and your fate will be in the hands of either hackers or gov’t agents.
i say, it might be a very good idea to sabotage every one of them you see.