GM says it can mass produce self-driving cars
Automaker says it has 130 Chevrolet Bolts ready to hit streets
General Motors said Tuesday it has finished making 130 self-driving Chevrolet Bolt test vehicles, an achievement the automaker says will help put it at the forefront of the race to develop and deploy autonomous cars.
CEO and Chairman Mary Barra said GM is the only automaker currently capable of mass-producing self-driving vehicles.
“The autonomous vehicles you see here today are purpose-built, self-driving test vehicles,” Barra said before several hundred employees at the plant Tuesday. “The level of integration in these vehicles is on par with any of our production vehicles, and that is a great advantage. In fact, no other company today has the unique and necessary combination of technology, engineering and manufacturing ability to build autonomous vehicles at scale.”
The self-driving version of the Bolt is the second generation of vehicles capable of handling nearly all road situations on their own without driver intervention. They are equipped with the latest array of equipment, including cameras, radar, sensors and other hardware designed and built by GM and its suppliers.
The new version of the selfdriving Bolts must still be driven with a person behind the wheel who is alert and ready to take control if necessary.
The automaker already had built about 50 Bolt autonomous vehicles that were retrofitted with the specialized sensors needed to drive themselves. That gives the automaker a total of 180 vehicles it can test and refine.
GM began testing the first generation of its self-driving Bolts last June in Detroit; Scottsdale, Ariz.; and San Francisco. Barra said testing of the new version of self-driving Bolts will begin soon.
GM began making the second- generation Bolt in January. The white Bolt displayed by GM on Tuesday can be easily spotted as an autonomous test car because of a roof rack with silver and black modules and cameras, sidemounted articulating white radar units that look like two small boxes stacked on top of each other that are used to monitor cross traffic and extra cameras mounted on the front.
“There are even a couple of cameras that are dedicated just to seeing traffic lights to make sure you don’t run red lights,” said Kyle Vogt, CEO of Cruise Automation, a self-driving car software company GM acquired for $581 million in 2016.
GM also invested $500 million in ride-hailing app Lyft and announced plans to deploy selfdriving Bolts through the company’s network.
GM is in the process of hiring 1,163 additional engineers and other employees to Cruise Automation and is moving the company headquarters to San Francisco. And this year, Chief Financial Officer Chuck Stevens vowed GM would run its autonomous vehicle development like a Silicon Valley start-up, sinking $600 million annually into the effort.