GM takes an unexpected lead in the race to develop autonomous vehicles

economist.com

9 points·johnny313··10 comments

A surge in a company like GM doesn't happen by accident. What changed in the world of GM to make this happen?

It's really Cruise Automation, not legacy GM.

That and Mary Barra. The change usually comes from the top.

Mary Barra is widely acknowledged to be a superior CEO. Good for GM!

tldr ' A scorecard issued annually by Navigant, a consultancy, puts GM ahead of the AV pack of carmakers and tech firms, with Alphabet’s Waymo in second place'.

GM cruise av video https://youtu.be/MvP82IsGqNc

'GM can now mass-produce self-driving cars....Scale will help steeply to reduce the cost of sensors, which are the key components of an AV.'

Apparently, they're already testing a driverless ride-sharing service (currently for GM employees only) and plan to open it to the public in 2019.

http://fortune.com/2017/11/30/gm-autonomous-ride-share-2019/

I flagged the article. Paywall with no alternate link and the text not pasted below. Subscriptions are expensive and without text links most people just cant consume the article

You can click the "web" link to search for the article on Google, and then follow the Google link to get a non-paywalled version. If that doesn't work, clear cookies / private browsing window will get around it.

Archive.is always works for The Economist in my experience:

http://archive.is/0FO9N

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