At a hearing called by the United States House Transportation Subcommittee on Highways on Tuesday, General Motors vice president of sustainability and global regulatory affairs, Mike Robinson, said that autonomous vehicles are a “significant distance into the future,” reports the Detroit Free Press.
The subcommittee gathered to discuss the recent attention given to autonomous vehicles, the possibility of them one day becoming a reality, and the associated safety concerns. Of the topics discussed was Google’s recent tests in which the web giant racked up thousands of miles in an autonomous vehicle with no accidents. However, Robinson stated that for the drivers “will still need to be engaged and in control” for the “foreseeable future”.
Although a self-driving car is a distant reality, the GM exec did not dismiss the possibility of bringing function-specific autonomous technology, such as a system that keeps a vehicle in a lane, to market “before the decade ends.” General Motors has been exploring autonomous vehicle technology, with the most prominent effort being Cadillac’s Super Cruise semi-autonomous technology, which could come to market by 2020.
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