GM Drops the Steering Wheel and Gives Robot Driver Control

January 13th, 2018

Awake Goy

GM Drops the Steering Wheel and Gives Robot Driver Control

January 12th, 2018

Next year, General Motors Co. will no longer need an engineer in the front seat babysitting the robot brain that controls its self-driving Chevrolet Bolt. The steering wheel and pedals will be gone, giving total control to the machine.

When GM starts testing its autonomous electric sedan in San Francisco ride-sharing fleets, itâ€™ll likely be the first production-ready car on the roads without the tools to let a human assume control. The announcement Friday is the first sign from a major carmaker that engineers have enough confidence in self-driving cars to let them truly go it alone.

â€œWhatâ€™s really special about this is if you look back 20 years from now, itâ€™s the first car without a steering wheel and pedals,â€� said Kyle Vogt, chief executive officer of Cruise Automation, the San Francisco-based unit developing the software for GMâ€™s self-driving cars.

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