GM revealed that the car is fully autonomous, without both the steering wheel and the accelerator

Cruise, a subsidiary of the automaker GM, introduced the first truly driverless vehicle, Origin. This is a product of a multi-year partnership between GM and Honda, designed for trip sharing service.

Just like an SUV, this car has absolutely no steering wheel or accelerator, and can drive itself completely on highways. Inside the car, only the passenger seats are placed facing each other, more like the inside of the carriages than a passenger car. Each seat is equipped with dedicated USB ports for each passenger. Besides the digital screens, perhaps to give passengers information about the trip.

The car door will be opened in sliding form ” so riders will be safer “.

Cruise’s CEO Dan Ammann said Origin was not a concept car, and it was ready to be produced for self-driving car services on a large scale, but the exact launch date was unknown. time of this service.

According to US regulations, this self-driving car does not meet specific design, manufacturing, performance and durability requirements for motor vehicles. Therefore, this vehicle will be difficult to operate soon on public roads.

Despite this, Origin is still being used in private environments such as in GM production facilities in Michigan and even Honda production facilities in the US.

GM will be in charge of the production of this vehicle, although Ammann did not provide further details of this. But the CEO also emphasized the low cost of the vehicle, when it is designed to operate within a million miles (about 1.6 million km).

He added that the vehicle will be produced ” at a fraction of the cost of a conventional electric SUV today .”

Currently, not only GM, many other car companies are also ambitious to launch self-driving cars, the most positive of which is Tesla when CEO Elon Musk has announced that he will launch a fully self-driving car by the end of this year. Ford also plans to commercialize its self-driving car by 2021, while Hyundai Motor has created a $ 4 billion joint venture with supplier Aptiv to launch self-driving cars in 2022.

Currently, Cruise has raised US $ 7.25 billion from investors such as Honda, SoftBank’s Vision Fund and T. Rowe Price Associates. With the latest investments in May 2019, the company is currently valued at $ 19 billion.

Refer to TechCrunch