CEO of General Motors: Launch of self-driving cars for individual consumers in a few years

On January 5, GM CEO Mary Barra said in a keynote speech at CES (Annual Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas that GM will launch self-driving cars for individual consumers "in the middle of this decade (2020-2029)." At the show, GM unveiled a new Cadillac self-driving concept car called InnerSpace.

"We are further looking for opportunities to extend fully autonomous driving technology to private transportation and meet the safety and quality that consumers expect." Barra said. GM and Cruise are accumulating significant technology and experience, and we are working to bring retail personal self-driving cars to market as quickly as possible. In fact, our goal is to deliver our first personal self-driving car by the middle of this decade. ”

Cruise is a leading U.S. self-driving technology company founded in San Francisco in 2013. In March 2016, Cruise was acquired by General Motors. Cruise is developing self-driving taxis that will transport people or packages in densely populated urban areas. In September 2021, Cruise received permission from the California Motor Vehicle Administration to offer driverless taxi services in the state.

But Cruise's self-driving taxi business has also experienced bumps. Cruise originally planned to commercialize a self-driving fleet in San Francisco in 2019, but postponed the plan indefinitely. In her speech, Barra said Cruise expects the plan to materialize in the coming months — the company applied for the last license needed for commercialization in November.

Although the previous movements of the subsidiary Cruise have been directed at self-driving taxis, GM has long had ideas for private self-driving cars. On an earnings call last May, CEO Barra revealed for the first time that GM was exploring the use of Cruise's technology to sell private self-driving cars.

This time, GM has set a clear timeline — it's only about three years away from the "middle of this decade." Still, many questions remain unknown, with Barra not explaining in his speech which models will be self-driving cars or how GM would define "autonomous driving."

Compilation/Synthesis: Nandu reporter Li Yaning