BlankAs you all know or maybe don’t, I like anything aviation. I’d like to see
cars built like small aircraft such as Cessna 172 airplane. “Stick and rudder”
driving. Stick forward, go faster. Stick back to center, stop along with
pushing brake peddle. Stick back, faster in reverse the farther you pull it
back. Stick right or left, turn/steer like a “joy stick” Just a wild idea.
“Keep calm and fly on”
Chris
From: Steve
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 2:58 PM
To: msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [msb-alumni] GM takes steering wheel, pedals out of Chevy Bolt, asks
feds to allow testing
GM takes steering wheel, pedals out of Chevy Bolt, asks feds to allow testing
Greg Gardner, Detroit Free Press
DETROIT -- Look Ma, no hands and no feet. But first, what does Uncle Sam say ?
General Motors ( GM ) has asked the government to approve test fleets of the
latest iteration of its autonomous Chevy Bolt, which has no steering wheel,
accelerator or brake pedal. Such approval is necessary before any manufacturer
can operate fully
driverless vehicles for commercial purposes.
GM said in November that it expected to transport people and cargo with
self-driving vehicles in big cities
sometime in 2019. Since acquiring Cruise Automation, a San Francisco start-up,
in spring 2016, GM and Cruise have developed four generations of autonomous
Chevrolet Bolt EVs. But the last version has no steering wheel, and no pedals
for accelerating or braking. Doors open and close automatically. Those
functions are handled by software, sensors and a laser-guidance technology
called LiDAR.
Seven states, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee
and Texas allow such vehicles to be tested with federal approval. But before a
vehicle can transport people, it must meet a battery of standards set by the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The legal problem is that those standards require compliance through tests with
a human driver as well as manual steering, acceleration and braking controls.
Leading this
journey through the regulatory process is Paul Hemmersbaugh, former NHTSA
general counsel who resigned from the agency a year ago to join GM as chief
counsel and policy director for transportation as a service.
"We are asking NHTSA to give us permission to meet the safety standards through
a different approach because we can't achieve them now without a human driver
or steering wheel," said Hemmersbaugh. "When you don't have a steering wheel it
makes no sense to talk about an air bag in the steering wheel."
But here's another challenge: NHTSA has had no chief since former administrator
Mark Rosekind left in November 2016. In April he was hired by Zoox, a San
Francisco autonomous technology firm, as chief safety innovation officer. For
the last year, Jack Danielson, a career civil servant and fourth in the
agency's chain of command, has run NHTSA. Many key vacancies, including
permanent chief counsel, director for government affairs and chief financial
officer have not been filled.
It is unclear how that will impact the review of requests such as the one GM
said Thursday it has presented. Elaine Chao, U.S. Transportation secretary who
oversees NHTSA, will speak Sunday in the opening session of the Detroit Auto
Show at Cobo Center.
*****
GM car gives up steering wheel, pedals . Peter Holley.
The future of driving doesn't involve driving - at all. That's the big takeaway
from a first peek inside General Motors' new autonomous car, which lacks the
steering wheel, pedals, manual controls and human drivers that have come to
define the experience of riding inside an automobile for more than a century.
That means the Cruise AV -- a fourth-generation autonomous vehicle based on the
Chevy Bolt EV -- is in total control. GM submitted a petition Thursday to the
Transportation Department, asking for the government to let it roll out the new
vehicle, which it says is safe. GM plans to mass-produce the vehicle as early
as next year, the automotive giant announced Friday.
The manufacturer is touting the vehicle as the world's "first production-ready
vehicle" built with the sole purpose of operating "safely on its own with no
driver," a degree of independence known as "Level 4" autonomy.
GM is far from the only company testing Level 4 vehicles. A California-based AV
start-up named Zoox and Alphabet's Waymo do, too.
"We view this as being a very important next step in our plan to deploy
self-driving vehicles at scale in 2019, and it's all part of our mission to
move to a world of zero crashes," said Ray Wert, head of storytelling and
advanced technology communications at GM.
GM is already testing second- and third-generation self-driving Cruise AVs on
busy streets in San Francisco and Phoenix with a human engineer in the vehicle.
It relies on cameras, radar and high-precision laser sensors known as "lidar"
for navigation.
Beginning in 2019, the fourth generation of that vehicle will be used in a
ride-sharing program in multiple
American cities, where "the vehicles will travel on a fixed route controlled by
their mapping system," Bloomberg News reported.
To improve safety, the vehicles will share information with one another and
rely on two computer systems, which operate simultaneously so that if one
computer encounters a problem, the second computer can serve as a backup,
according to GM's self-driving safety report that it submitted to the
Transportation Department. The report says the Cruise AV was designed to
operate in chaotic, fluid conditions, such as with aggressive drivers,
jaywalkers, bicyclists, delivery trucks and construction.
"With its advanced sensor systems, the Cruise AV has the capability to see the
environment around it, in 360 degrees, day and night," the safety report adds.
"It is designed to identify pedestrians in a crosswalk, or an object darting
suddenly into its path, and to respond accordingly. It can maneuver through
construction cones, yield to emergency vehicles and react to avoid collisions."
As The Washington Post reported last month, the ambitious timeline GM has set
for getting the Cruise AV on the road could place the automaker in an enviable
position -- the unique ability to provide existing ride-hailing
companies such as Lyft or Uber with a growing fleet of autonomous vehicles or,
better yet, to unleash GM's own service.
The company has access to vast dealership networks, nationwide influence and
manufacturing prowess, potentially offering a GM-driven ride-hailing service
the opportunity to supplant the Silicon Valley start-ups that have been seeking
for years to disrupt the auto industry.
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