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General Motors (GM) is introducing a new set of cars that have no steering wheels and no pedals. The company said is mass-producing the self-driving vehicles and that it had applied to the United States Government for permission to put them on the road in 2019.
The location of the service has not been revealed.
GM and other companies have tested autonomous cars on the road, yet the vehicles typically have an engineer behind the wheel, reading to take over in case the need arises. But GM’s Cruise Automation unit said it plans to carry passengers in the self-driving cars without backup driver in 2019.
“What’s really special about this is if you look back 20 years from now, it’s the first car without a steering wheel and pedals,” Kyle Vogt, chief executive officer of Cruise Automation, told Bloomberg News. Cruise Automation is developing the software for GM’s self-driving cars.
GM spokesman Kevin Kelly says the first of the autonomous Chevrolet Bolts is being tested.
The automaker’s autonomous car tests were involved in 22 accidents in California in 2017, according to Bloomberg News, which cited the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The company has said the accidents weren’t caused by any of the GM cars.