General Motors and Cruise Automation will be the first to test autonomous vehicles on public roads in New York state, it was announced on Tuesday. The cars?which will have a pair of humans onboard as backup?aren't taking the easy route, either. The geofenced test location will be the mean streets of Manhattan, beginning in early 2018.
Earlier this year, Jack, Audi's autonomous demonstrator, took New York lawmakers out for rides to familiarize them with driveless tech. But even Audi only refers to Jack as having "level 3" autonomy, and it only drives itself on divided highways. Cruise and GM will be testing out level 4 autonomous vehicles, which are more capable and?within a geofenced area?should be able to drive an entire route without human intervention.
GM bought Cruise for more than $1 billion in 2016 and since then has been testing driverless vehicles in San Francisco, Detroit, and Scottsdale, Arizona. Cruise has now developed its third-generation autonomous vehicle, based on the Chevrolet Bolt electric car. And in February we learned that GM and Lyft had plans to put thousands of self-driving Bolts into action in San Francisco in 2018.
Manhattan will be an even tougher challenge for the robocars. Manhattan's roads are a hellish agglomeration of potholes, double- and even triple-parking, and pedestrian and vehicle traffic unlike anywhere else in the country. Gridlock is routine, and few quarters are given by other drivers before slamming on the horn in displeasure and disgust.
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