COOL or CREEPY? GM Lobbying The NHTSA To Allow Autonomous Vehicles WITHOUT One Critical Component...

NHTSA's acting chief said on Friday the agency is in talks with General Motors on its January 2018 petition to deploy a limited number of self-driving vehicles on U.S. roads without steering wheels or other human controls.

Acting NHTSA Administrator James Owens said his agency aims to make a decision soon on GM's petition, as well as a request by Softbank Corp-backed driverless delivery startup Nuro to deploy a limited number of low-speed, highly automated delivery vehicles without human occupants...

..."I expect we're going to be able to move forward with these petitions soon - as soon as we can," Owens told Reuters, adding action "definitely" would come next year.

"This will be a big deal because this will be the first such action that will be taken," Owens said...
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MDarringer - 12/21/2019 1:15:16 PM

0 Boost

Assuming that self-driving vehicles will be perfected in a decade after killing scores of test victims on public roads, the vehicle should still have non-autonomous control.

dumpsty - 12/23/2019 12:21:44 PM

+1 Boost

That's the intent of a fully autonomous vehicle. There would be no need for steering wheel, pedals for acceleration, braking, clutch. It would sense water for wipers & activate signals prior to turning.

I would imagine some type of external control options (i.e. via smartphone) for the owner/rider to park the vehicle.

TomM - 12/21/2019 4:03:35 PM

+2 Boost

This is not going to happen all that quick - AND - the insurance industry is going to have to get involved as well.

Right now - a person has to be available to steer a car in the event something goes wrong. That is literally a way to transfer liability to the "driver". Without that -ALL accidents involving injury are going to include the manufacturer of the car that does not have a steering wheel - BUT - currently all states will also have to change their laws to allow cars without steering wheels. Frankly - I would expect that it will not happen in the next 20 years.

CANADIANCOMMENTS - 12/21/2019 5:17:06 PM

+2 Boost

In the early days of the Moon program the engineers did not want the astronauts to be able to control the capsule. There was no stick. They pushed back as they did not want to leave their lives in the hands of a machine or mission control. I would follow that logic today.

Agent00R - 12/22/2019 11:06:46 PM

+1 Boost

Great anecdote. Thank you for sharing!

atc98092 - 12/21/2019 6:43:56 PM

+3 Boost

I just can't accept the the technology will be ready for autonomous driving any time soon. There's still far too many variables that have to be accounted for that a (reasonable) human driver can easily compensate for. Little things like potholes, debris on the road, temporary road repairs, etc. The lane keeping assist in my Kia is constantly triggering on the tar lines that they use to seal cracks in the road when they run parallel in the direction of travel. Or where a road has been widened and there's the remains of a scrubbed off lane marking that is still visible. A human sees it's not a valid lane marking, but the car starts chirping that I've drifted out of the lane. And it's not just the Kia system, as my Subaru with Eyesight did the same thing.

Agent00R - 12/22/2019 11:07:18 PM

+1 Boost

We're at least 25-30 years out, IMHO.

carloslassiter - 12/21/2019 8:48:24 PM

+2 Boost

If I don't get a steering wheel then I prefer to have the seat face backward with a card table in the middle and a mini-fridge.

MDarringer - 12/21/2019 10:30:42 PM

-1 Boost

Can we have martinis and play strip poker?
JK

Agent00R - 12/22/2019 11:07:37 PM

+1 Boost

LOL ^^

skytop - 12/22/2019 7:48:45 AM

0 Boost

No steering wheel and NO brakes. Only GM could think of this.

TomM - 12/22/2019 1:01:54 PM

+1 Boost

No Human Occupants is the main information here. I do not see where it says no brakes though.