General Motors Canada continues its calls to become a leading force for the future of the automotive industry. During remarks to the Economic Club in Ottawa, GM Canada president and managing director, Steve Carlisle, confirmed that its Canadian Engineering Centre in Oshawa, Ontario, has been awarded a mandate to play a leading role in the build of autonomous driving vehicles.
The upcoming test fleet will be made up of 2017 Chevrolet Volts, and initially be part of a test fleet based at the GM Warren Tech Center in Michigan.
“Our Engineering Centre in Oshawa was a logical place to locate this important work and it is the next step in growing the new mandate of the Centre to focus on work related to the Connected Car,” said Carlisle. “The Province of Ontario’s leadership in allowing autonomous vehicle testing was a helpful support in securing this advanced technology work for our Canadian facility.”
Through the autonomous vehicle program, GM employees will reserve a Volt using a car-sharing app, then select a destination. GM’s autonomous technology will bring the vehicle to its destination and park it. The program will serve as a rapid-development laboratory to provide data and lessons to accelerate GM’s technical capabilities in autonomous vehicles.
The news comes after calls by Carlisle to encourage Canadian universities to become a charging force in the future of autonomous driving and its infrastructure, and partner with GM Canada for future technology.
Comments
Pandering to us Canadians, eh?
About time we did something up here…not like we will ever have our own car company or anything.
True. I chuckle whenever I hear someone refer to Chevy or Ford as ‘domestic’ instead of as imports…..just like every other car sold here. 😉
Kind of like Tim Hortons now. Fully owned by anow American/ Brazilian outfit with an American CEO calling the shots. Yet I still get fellow Canadians selling me on the “virtues” of being “patriotic” and buying “Canadian” over Starbucks.
Haha…