GM to Test Fleet of Self-Driving Cars in New York
GM to Test Fleet of Self-Driving Cars in New York
GM to deploy fleet of Chevrolet Bolts early next year in
five-square-mile section of lower Manhattan
Chevrolet Bolt autonomous vehicles, built at a GM plant
near Detroit. The company's Cruise Automation division plans to start testing
the cars in lower Manhattan in early 2018. PHOTO: GENERAL MOTORS
By Mike Colias and Tim Higgins Oct. 17, 2017 12:00 a.m.
ET
General Motors Co. plans to become the first company to
test self-driving cars in New York City, a move aimed at asserting leadership
in the race to develop autonomous cars and a potentially important step toward
commercializing the technology.
GM will deploy a fleet of self-driving Chevrolet Bolt
electric cars early next year in a 5-square-mile section of lower Manhattan
that engineers are mapping, said Kyle Vogt, chief executive of Cruise
Automation, the driverless-car developer GM acquired last year. The move could
be seen as a threat to the thousands of taxi drivers piloting yellow cabs
around New York, as autonomous robot-taxis operated by GM and its rivals are
seen eventually displacing human drivers.
GM said a safety operator will be at the wheel of each
car to gather data and take over if something goes wrong.
GM’s Cruise operation has been testing more than 100
self-driving Bolts in various markets, but its work in San Francisco is seen as
particularly valuable because it offers a congested environment with a high
concentration of hairy situations that fully automated cars must learn to
navigate. New York will present similar challenges and offer new hurdles,
including bad weather and more-aggressive drivers, which will “improve our
software at a much faster rate,” Mr. Vogt said.
“Anyone else who’s driven in New York City knows that
it’s going to present some unique challenges,” he said in an interview. Cruise
will open a research facility in the city but declined to discuss details.
GM is racing to develop vehicles that drive themselves as
tech companies try to perfect technology that could shuffle the power players
in the auto industry. One-quarter of miles driven in the U.S. by 2030 could be
through shared, self-driving vehicles, according to an estimate from the Boston
Consulting Group.
Most companies have focused testing in Silicon Valley—42
companies hold permits to test autonomous vehicles on California’s public
roads. That includes Google parent Alphabet Inc. through its Waymo unit, which
is testing around its corporate campus in suburban Mountain View. It is also
scaling up operations in the Phoenix area, where it offers rides to
nonemployees in 500 Chrysler minivans, with a safety operator at the wheel.
Cruise and other new competitors are making up for lost
time against Waymo, which is considered the leader after spending eight years
collecting more than 3.5 million autonomous miles in more than 20 cities.
GM executives argue that hard-earned city driving is more
useful for the car to learn how to handle unusual situations that human drivers
take for granted, such as how to handle broken traffic lights at an
intersection. For example, Cruise’s autonomous Bolts encountered a lane blocked
by construction at a rate of 19 times more often in San Francisco than in the
Phoenix area, where it is also testing.
Executives haven’t given a specific time frame, but said
they envision an on-demand ride-sharing network in a densely populated area,
and that deployment will happen “sooner than people think.”
In a research note this month, Deutsche Bank analyst Rod
Lache said he believes GM could launch a commercial autonomous-ride
service—without anyone at the wheel—“within the next few quarters, well ahead
of competitors.” Citing recent briefings with company officials, he thinks GM
will offer its own service that could be “highly disruptive” to ride-hailing
giants Uber and Lyft Inc.
Mr. Vogt wouldn’t say whether Cruise’s New York testing
signals plans to eventually offer an autonomous-car service there. Testing in
Manhattan “will be critical to the ultimate success of autonomous vehicles and
the compression of the timeline for deployment at scale,” he said.
GM shares have surged more than 25% in the last two
months amid growing buzz around its driverless technology.
Several states have passed laws to give autonomous-car
developers broad latitude to test their systems on public roads, including
California, Michigan and Arizona, betting the technology will someday spawn
bigger investments and jobs. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is pushing for
autonomous testing as part of an effort to fashion New York as a technology
hub, which has included significant investment in the drone industry.
“We’re proud to be on the forefront of this emerging
industry that has the potential to be the next great technological advance that
moves our economy,” Gov. Cuomo said in a statement.
The state passed a law last spring that grants autonomous
testing on state roads. Cruise’s experience should generate data for future
industry-friendly regulation, an office spokeswoman said.
Appeared in the October 17, 2017, print edition as
'Self-Drive Cars Planned In New York.'
Comments
Post a Comment