General Motors has announced a five year sponsorship of a program to further develop driverless vehicles. GM will partner with Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University for the program and will dedicate $5 million to the effort.
Dubbed the collaborative research lab, the program is intended to make driving safer and reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents.
“Technologies ranging from electronics, controls and software to wireless capabilities and digital mapping could ultimately change how people drive and use their vehicles,” Larry Burns, GM’s research and development vice president, said in a statement.
GM partnered with Carnegie Mellon in last year’s DARPA Urban Challenge – one of the world’s premier driverless vehicle competitions – and took home top honors.
06/20, 11:17 AM
posted by:
johnnycanuck
Since the whole company pretty much operates without a real skipper at the helm this could be viewed as a natural progression.
06/20, 11:17 AM
posted by:
injunraiv
Big deal. Honda has been offering driverless vehicles for years. I mean come on, no real ‘driver’ would be caught dead in one of those toasters!
06/20, 11:24 AM
posted by:
jumpoffit
ooooooooooo i can’t wait to develop a virus to knock out their electronics that control these systems, or carry a pocket sized EMP
how have we gotten so lazy that we don’t even want to drive ourselves anywhere
06/20, 11:44 AM
posted by:
Need4SSpeed
While this technology seems really interesting, and while we can always fantasize about cars that drive themselves, and cars that fly, like we do in Hollywood films. I really don’t see this as being the answer for our safety issues. I’ve traveled to Europe many times and I’ve seen how chaotic driving can be in cities like Rome, Madrid, and Athens, and as crazy as it looks you rarely see any accidents. What we need to focus on here is stricter law enforcement, harsher sentences, our driving education needs to be completely re-vamped and it needs to be a lot harder to obtain a license. And even though the best of us who are good drivers will make mistakes. And some of this technology will seem useful, practical and may prove to be safer, but I predict there would be a major backlash against cars driving themselves, because you can’t replace manual control for your own safety.
06/20, 12:11 PM
posted by:
injunraiv
So Need;
What you’re saying is if people would just take ownership of the fact they’re out there piloting a potentially deadly device, maybe we wouldn’t need a computer to do the driving for us?
That is completely unamerican. You should be ashamed of yourself!
06/20, 12:21 PM
posted by:
Need4SSpeed
^ haha (sensing sarcasm) Call me unAmerican but I swear I would move right out of this country if the Federal Govermnent in the future mandated that all cars be computerized. I drive myself thank you very much!
06/20, 1:05 PM
posted by:
jumpoffit
thats right Need4SSpeed unamerican lol, you know us americans want the car to drive us so we can eat our MICKY D’s, PIZZA, HotDogs and then take long naps so we can stay overweight
06/20, 1:10 PM
posted by:
brassmonkey
Driverless cars seem interesting. I think it would be useful on road trips when I would love to take a nap. Not so sure I would by a GM driverless car, since they can barely make a car that requires a driver.
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Need4SS, good points. Insurance rates would most likely come down if all 50 states mandated stricter guidelines for getting licensed. In Europe, it is expensive to get licensed, and the tests are pretty rigorous. Here, if a 16 year old girl can properly signal for a left turn, “YOU PASS! That’s be $15 please. Have fun drving out there!”
06/20, 1:21 PM
posted by:
hateful83
This would work for some of the general public who don’t like driving and just need their ass carted around. It sucks to think they want to go in this direction. Oddly enough, I enjoy driving, as I’m sure most of you do. I do feel though that in daily life this would be very hard to pull off. I don’t see how “self driving” cars are gonna be able to cruise the streets amoungst traditional driver operated cars without bad consequences.
06/20, 1:40 PM
posted by:
rodeo40
How about spending the cash on improving the quality of their current fleet?
06/20, 1:49 PM
posted by:
xyunya
5 mils is less then Lut’z’s bonus. Does not fit cash definition on GM books.
06/20, 10:44 PM
posted by:
Brendino
This is always a safe bet. $5 million is gold for a university, chump change for GM, and you get some of the brightest young minds in the country tackling the problem as a means to get ahead (CMU is a COMPETITIVE school). I’ll likely never blame a company for giving something like this a shot.
06/21, 12:56 AM
posted by:
Get Real
Playing cards while the Titanic is sinking.
Same story, just a different time and place.
06/21, 9:50 AM
posted by:
Need4SSpeed
yeah, thank you Brendino, again not that I agree really with driverless vehicles, but at least GM is looking into this. If Honda or Toyota (which they are) or Mercedes or BMW were on LLN looking into this (i’m sure they are as well) they would be getting praised on here for looking into this but again it’s because GM being noted on here by LLN for doing this..