GM Invests $100M in Fully Autonomous Cruise AV

General Motors is investing over $100 million to produce the Cruise AV, the first fully autonomous mass produced vehicle. It is scheduled to be released in 2019. GM says this is “the first production-ready vehicle built from the start to operate safely on its own, with no driver, steering wheel, pedals or manual controls.” I wonder where you will be allowed to drive it, cancel that, make it “ride” in it. GM will need to get an exemption from the federal government to drive on public roads.

As you can see in the photo there is no less than 5 lidar sensors on the roof-mounted navigation package. It also has 21 radar sensors and 16 video cameras. Velodyne has to be happy about that. I don’t mean to sound hyper-critical, but what happens when there is a major snow or ice storm?

It looks very comfortable without the steering wheel and foot pedals, but kind of scary as well. I wonder what the general public is going to think about this.

GM told investors last year that they intend to make hundreds of thousands of dollars over the life of each vehicle. Today that figure is closer to $30,000. I guess that is one reason why there is so much interest in autonomous vehicles.