Jan 6, 2008 5:01 pm US/Mountain
General Motors Researching Driverless Cars
DETROIT (AP) ―
Cars that drive themselves — even parking at their destination —
could be ready for sale within a decade, General Motors Corp.
executives say.
GM, parts suppliers, university engineers and other automakers all
are working on vehicles that could revolutionize short- and
long-distance travel. And Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in
Las Vegas GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will devote part of his
speech to the driverless vehicles.
"This is not science fiction," Larry Burns, GM's vice president for research and development, said in a recent interview.
The most significant obstacles facing the vehicles could be human
rather than technical: government regulation, liability laws, privacy
concerns and people's passion for the automobile and the control it
gives them.
Much of the technology already exists for vehicles to take the
wheel: radar-based cruise control, motion sensors, lane-change warning
devices, electronic stability control and satellite-based digital
mapping. And automated vehicles could dramatically improve life on the
road, reducing crashes and congestion.
If people are interested.
"Now the question is what does society want to do with it?" Burns
said. "You're looking at these issues of congestion, safety, energy and
emissions. Technically there should be no reason why we can't transfer
to a totally different world."
GM plans to use an inexpensive computer chip and an antenna to link
vehicles equipped with driverless technologies. The first use likely
would be on highways; people would have the option to choose a
driverless mode while they still would control the vehicle on local
streets, Burns said.
He said the company plans to test driverless car technology by 2015 and have cars on the road around 2018.
Sebastian Thrun, co-leader of the Stanford University team that
finished second among six teams completing a 60-mile Pentagon-sponsored
race of driverless cars in November, said GM's goal is technically
attainable. But he said he wasn't confident cars would appear in
showrooms within a decade.
"There's some very fundamental, basic regulations in the way of that
vision in many countries," said Thrun, a professor of computer science
and electrical engineering.
The Defense Department contest, which initially involved 35 teams,
showed the technology isn't ready for prime time. One team was
eliminated after its vehicle nearly charged into a building, while
another vehicle mysteriously pulled into a house's carport and parked
itself.
Thrun said a key benefit of the technology eventually will be safer
roads and reducing the roughly 42,000 U.S. traffic deaths that occur
annually — 95 percent of which he said are caused by human mistakes.
"We might be able to cut those numbers down by a factor of 50
percent," Thrun said. "Just imagine all the funerals that won't take
place."
Other challenges include updating vehicle codes and figuring out who
would be liable in a crash and how to cope with blown tires or
obstacles in the road. But the systems could be developed to tell
motorists about road conditions, warn of crashes or stopped vehicles
ahead and prevent collisions in intersections.
Later versions of driverless technology could reduce jams by
directing vehicles to space themselves close together, almost as if
they were cars in a train, and maximize the use of space on a freeway,
he said.
"It will really change society, very much like the transition from a horse to a car," Thrun said.
The U.S. government has pushed technology to help drivers avoid
crashes, most notably electronic stability controls that help prevent
rollovers. The systems are required on new passenger vehicles starting
with the 2012 model year.
Vehicle-to-vehicle communication and technology allowing cars to talk with highway systems could come next.
Still in debate are how to address drivers' privacy, whether
current vehicles can be retrofitted and how many vehicles would be need
the systems to develop an effective network.
"Where it shakes out remains to be seen but there is no
question we see a lot of potential there," said Rae Tyson, a spokesman
for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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