Google isn’t the only company testing the bounds of autonomous vehicles, as researchers from Carnegie Mellon University are working with General Motors to bring a driverless future to America, and they’re doing so by taking lawmakers for a ride.
The International Business Times reports that lawmakers were given test drives in an autonomous 2011 Cadillac SRX. In an email to IBT, the co-director of the General Motors-Carnegie Mellon Vehicular Information Technology Collaborative Research Lab, Ragunathan Rajkumar, wrote that the ultimate goal of taking Capitol Hill lawmakers for a test drive was to “improve social awareness and acceptance [of autonomous vehicles].”
While some analysts and critics believe that autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles are still far and away (which they might be if regulators turn a could shoulder on the technology), General Motors and Cadillac aim for a semi-autonomous vehicle launch by 2020. In other words, the company’s Super Cruise technology. We believe that this feature will first debut on Cadillac’s upcoming LTS flagship, and will then trickle down to lesser models.
Comments
I saw the video and it is totally convincing. The Cadillac SRX looks completely stock, except for a red button on the console (a “panic button”?), and the video is speeded up so you can see all the small turns and corrections that the SRX is doing. Obviously the Cadillac line will be the first to have it, but I am sure it will trickle down to the Chevy Spark and Sonic in the future. As soon as it is within my buying range , I will buy one!