Following the Obama administration’s proposal for nearly $4 billion spent over the next decade on the acceptance of autonomous vehicles on American roads, General Motors has issued its own statement.
The statement praises the U.S. government’s call for autonomous vehicle acceptance, and supports the preliminary guidelines outlined in the proposal. The statement reads as follows:
General Motors supports the government/industry collaboration to advance principles for autonomous vehicles given our shared goals for consumer safety and satisfaction. We see automation and autonomous technology leading to large advances in convenience, mobility and safety, since most crashes are caused by driver error. We are committed to working with the government and the rest of the industry on standards. GM has millions of miles of real-world experience with embedded connectivity through OnStar and advanced safety features that are the building blocks to more advanced autonomy features and eventually to autonomous vehicles.
Autonomous vehicles have many hurdles to get over in actually coming to fruition, but the proposal would pave the way to make a national adoption easier, rather than state-by-state patchwork laws.
Comment
The Government must continue to establish standards , such as safety and communication between vehicles, so that the manufacturers will share that role, and guarantee all customers that their vehicles will comply. Any manufacturers that chooses a different path just to be a “leader” will be left with no “followers”, and can actually be a danger to their own customers. Present safety standards have been very active in saving lives and money, but many detractors sill believe that following the Government standards is more expensive. I prefer to pay more to follow a standard that try out a brand that wants to do it diffently. GM is one great company that follows these standards and as such will be the best manufacturer to continue customer and passenger safety.