GM Says Driverless Cars In Ten Years
The Chinese made Hongqi HQ3.
The VW Passat 2.0 TDi.
DETROIT - Cars that drive themselves—even parking at their destination—could be ready for sale within a decade, General Motors Corp. executives say.
GM, parts suppliers, university engineers and other automakers all are working on vehicles that could revolutionize short- and long-distance travel. And Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will devote part of his speech to the driverless vehicles.
“This is not science fiction,” Larry Burns, GM’s vice president for research and development, said in a recent interview.
The most significant obstacles facing the vehicles could be human rather than technical: government regulation, liability laws, privacy concerns and people’s passion for the automobile and the control it gives them.
Much of the technology already exists for vehicles to take the wheel: radar-based cruise control, motion sensors, lane-change warning devices, electronic stability control and satellite-based digital mapping. And automated vehicles could dramatically improve life on the road, reducing crashes and congestion.
If people are interested.
Wasn’t Kitt the first? Looks like Hollywood, again lacking in originality, is rehashing another 70’s show for the big screen. I’m waiting for Captain Kangaroo-The Movie.
“Now the question is what does society want to do with it?” Burns said. “You’re looking at these issues of congestion, safety, energy and emissions. Technically there should be no reason why we can’t transfer to a totally different world.”
GM plans to use an inexpensive computer chip and an antenna to link vehicles equipped with driverless technologies. The first use likely would be on highways; people would have the option to choose a driverless mode while they still would control the vehicle on local streets, Burns said.
He said the company plans to test driverless car technology by 2015 and have cars on the road around 2018.
Sebastian Thrun, co-leader of the Stanford University team that finished second among six teams completing a 60-mile Pentagon- sponsored race of driverless cars in November, said GM’s goal is technically attainable. But he said he wasn’t confident cars would appear in showrooms within a decade.
(AP)
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Gotta Love Darpa
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, Public Law 106-398, Congress mandated in Section 220 that “It shall be a goal of the Armed Forces to achieve the fielding of unmanned, remotely controlled technology such that… by 2015, one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles are unmanned.” DARPA conducts the Urban Challenge program in support of this Congressional mandate. Every “dull, dirty, or dangerous” task that can be carried out using a machine instead of a human protects our warfighters and allows valuable human resources to be used more effectively.
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/overview.asp
January 7th, 2008 at 1:35 pmIf I were GM I wouldn’t be worrying about driverless cars, I think I would be concentrating on efficiency
January 7th, 2008 at 1:48 pmGreat, now we are going to have a way that Islamic extremists can avoid committing suicide via VBIED.
Oh, and just saw that commercial for the new Knight Rider on Saturday and it is going to be a Mustang Cobra. I put money on the fact that they will have David Hasselhof involved in some way. God help us.
Not an ounce of originality in Hollywood anymore. When does the remake of Airwolf come out? Jeesh.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:49 pmI just hope they program the sonofabitch to get out of the GD left lane.
January 7th, 2008 at 3:48 pmI just want fewer 65 -y.o. nimrods doing all kinds of crazy shit.
January 7th, 2008 at 5:00 pmIt’s inevitable that our future will involve vehicles that are fully automated…the advantages are too good to pass up. My own feeling is that it will run on rails…much safer and easier to control. Plus, you can have an all electric vehicle without the need for bulky batteries. Like this…
http://www.PRTProject.com
gary
January 7th, 2008 at 6:41 pm@Gary - Thanks for the commercial!
January 7th, 2008 at 8:42 pmSteve,
I don’t see how I will even gain financially from this proposal, so not quite a commercial…just pushing my proposal. Also open to your feedback…
gary
January 8th, 2008 at 6:28 am