Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV in December announced it had completed building 100 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to be retrofitted with an autonomous driving system developed by Google Inc.’s self-driving car project, Waymo. Waymo’s fleet of vehicles at the time included 24 Lexus RX450h SUVs and 34 Google prototype vehicles.
Meanwhile, Ford Motor Co. announced late in 2016 that it would triple the number of its autonomous test vehicles in 2017, which would increase the size of the fleet to 90. Ford is testing the driverless cars in Michigan, California and Arizona; drivers are behind the steering wheel, ready to take over in an emergency. The company has vowed to have a fully driverless car without a steering wheel or pedals for braking and acceleration on the road in 2021.
In February, Ford also announced it would invest $1 billion over five years into a new artificial intelligence company, Argo AI, to develop the brains of its self-driving cars. In August 2016, Ford announced four investments and partnerships that it said would help it with its autonomous vehicle development.
They included investing $75 million in Velodyne, a LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensor company; acquiring SAIPS, a computer vision and machine learning company; investing in Civil Maps to further develop 3-D mapping; and inking an exclusive licensing agreement with Nirenberg Neuroscience LLC, a machine vision company.
The documents connected to GM’s push to secure space on the spectrum show company officials expressing confidence in their place in the push for autonomous vehicles. A March letter from GM to the FCC recapped an earlier meeting between GM and FCC officials that described comments made by John Capp, the carmaker’s director of global safety, strategy and vehicle programs.
“He explained that while GM is leading the industry with the deployment of the CTS, this technology is no different than others in… that in order to further develop the safety benefits, more testing must be done.”
A later passage in that same letter reads: “The (FCC) Chairman asked Mr. Capp and (GM’s Scott Geisler) if the other automakers are on the same aggressive timeline. They let him know that, while GM is ahead of others, GM believes that other, too, are also working on deployment…”
JLynch@detroitnews.com
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