General Motors CEO Mary Barra recently took a ride aboard a fully autonomous Chevy Bolt EV, getting a brief tour of San Francisco while witnessing firsthand the power of the latest Cruise driverless technology. The experience was captured in the following three-minute video.
For those readers who may be unaware, Cruise is GM’s autonomous vehicle division, which is currently developing the technology needed for fully driverless vehicles. In fact, the tech division is already operating fully autonomous vehicles on the streets of San Francisco.
As we see in the video, GM CEO Mary Barra went to San Francisco to experience the technology for herself. The video also includes Cruise founder and CTO Kyle Vogt, who rides in the rear seat with Barra, while GM President Mark Reuss also takes another ride in a fully autonomous Chevy Bolt EV alongside GM Senior Vice President, Global Comms, Craig Buchholz.
After calling the autonomous Bolt using a smartphone app, the driverless EV pulls up to the curb where Mary Barra and Kyle Vogt are waiting to board. As the trip gets underway, the passengers are astounded, applauding as the Cruise-equipped vehicle deftly navigates the city streets.
“I always believed that we’d be doing it,” Barra says during her ride. “But to actually be doing it, it’s just surreal.”
“A lot of people have asked me, ‘well, how are you going get people to use it,'” she adds. “It’s like, ok we were in the vehicle for five minutes and the trust is there.”
The drive feels like a historic moment for the occupants, setting the tone for a new age in mobility technology.
As Cruise continues to refine its autonomous technology, it is now seeking a permit that will allow it to charge passengers for a ride in the vehicles. Back in January of 2020, General Motors unveiled Cruise Origin, the company’s first production-ready fully autonomous ride-sharing vehicle, which is equipped with an all-electric powertrain.
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Comments
i hope they let poppy come out to play when there are cars and people around otherwise it might get an inferiority complex.
I think Poppy was taking a poopie at the time
I can’t wait until one of these hits me I will own the company after that and change the name.
Make sure the car is going at a very high rate of speed and you jump in front of it at the last minute. Have to make sure there’s no possible way for it to avoid you.
I won’t be on foot I’ll be in my vehicle and make sure this rear ends me. Of course my back and neck will be hurting.
They will file Bankruptcy again…
Like they did after Killing 120 Americans who bought their cars with defective ignitions.
With the current state of things, If Cruise offered me the ride, I’d refuse.
“it’s just surreal”
If she thinks that’s surreal, she should take the tram, people mover or monorail at Disney World!
i think pouring billions into tech that few seem to want is surreal.
Reminds me of the GM/EDS scenario of the 1980s.
I wonder what the criteria is for making these decisions on producing products people do not want. And don’t say safety. Auto CEOs only care about safety to a point that it gets them another sale. Amazing how the supposed best and brightest of our corporations are like sheeple and sheeple jump on the bandwagon based on what these CEOs are telling them.
With the diminished safety of public transportation in major cities, people do want these. Remember in NYC/Chicago upwards if 30% of residents never obtain a drivers license. Hopefully not too many sub-humans with stolen credit cards use them for public toilets:)
Unfortunately I think we both know the answer to that one. When something is not theirs, and there is no human supervision, anything goes.
It’s a big milestone because this technology will eventually be incorporated into every car, which will increase safety and accessibility.
Lmao not in anyone on here’s lifetime.
It’ll come much sooner than people think. Self-driving cars can already handle most situations today. And for those who are dubious, just think of how much of a boon this will be for medical emergencies. The car can contact emergency services and drive to the nearest hospital where it self-parks for you.
Most CEOs are currently imagining self-driving as a glorified taxi service. It won’t be. It’ll become a safety companion that helps when you need it the most. I’m looking forward to that.
Medical emergency? These drones are programmed to operate at or below speed limits. If there is a medical emergency, time is of the essence and an operator of a vehicle- autonomous or otherwise- has no business operating a car if they are the ones who are having the emergency.
Or a long interstate travel, imagine lives saved from drowsy or even DUI driving…
I’m with person above I’ll be glad when they get here because I see a huge payday in my future from this.
Mary needs to GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Driverless because she probably has no clue how to drive. Oh wait she has a chauffeur no need to know how
For crying out loud, this isn’t a Tesla folks, it won’t drive off the road, crash and kill you. As long as they changed the battery in the Bolt, you’ll get where you are going.
No it will just catch fire instead.
Wow, “it will catch fire”. Now that is an original answer from a Tesla troll. How many Tesla folks have perished because they believed the garbage about a Tesla being able to drive itself? I got news for you, Tesla may still sell the most EV’s but there has been a subtle shift in EV technology development. Not by one EV manufacturer but by several. Don’t be surprised that in the next few years all that Tesla may have going for it is their great charging system. Even that may not be enough. Tesla’s vaunted $12,000 optional self driving system has serious technical flaws. Tesla is betting that just cameras and artificial intelligence will work. The question that I have is how is Tesla going to retrofit all of their older vehicles with enough computing power to make them work? Personally when it rains my backup cameras in my Porsche and Toyota RAV4 is so distorted you cannot back up safely. I guess Tesla must not have that problem with their cameras.
I don’t like Tesla nice try though. Keep crying
I can live with the “takeover” of BEV’s, but if this doesn’t give me the choice to take control when I feel it’s necessary than this technology is truly the spawn of Satan.
What a dingbat this Barra is! All giddy and trusting the vehicle in 5 mins. All good until it crashes on its own or someone in another car hits her. These idiots think that nobody wants to drive anymore. They’ll realize eventually how wrong they are. I want to see how well they work in the Northeast and Midwest with the pothole ridden roads and yellow and white lines are impossible to make out due to rock salt stained asphalt.
Will you Tesla trolls please stop comparing the gm self driving technology to Tesla’s? The gm’s (and Ford’s apparently) works, the Tesla’s hurts people.
Driverless technology is NOT foolproof.
Only a fool will trust it.
Clearly this GM product will Kill more effectively than their Killer Ignitions…