General Motors Co announced last Tuesday that it has completed mass production of 130 self-driving Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles. The production began in January and took place at GM’s Orion assembly plant located in Michigan.
A GM company representative released details of the company’s plan to deploy the autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, California and Scottsdale, Arizona. The deployment is scheduled to take place within the month after a final test in Michigan with ride-sharing affiliate Lyft is completed.
GM CEO and Chairman Mary Barra spoke before several hundred employees gathered at the plant in Lake Orion, Michigan last Tuesday and stated that GM is the only automaker currently capable of mass-producing driverless vehicles.
“The autonomous vehicles you see here today are purpose-built, self-driving test vehicles,” Barra said. “The level of integration in these vehicles is on par with any of our production vehicles, and that is a great advantage. In fact, no other company today has the unique and necessary combination of technology, engineering and manufacturing ability to build autonomous vehicles at scale.“
Scottsdale, San Francisco and metro Detroit are already home to 50 current-generation self-driving Bolt EV’s that have been deployed by the company since June 2016.
This self-driving fleet production makes GM the first company to assemble autonomous vehicles at such a high rate.
“To achieve what we want from self-driving cars, we must deploy them at scale,” said Cruise Automation CEO Kyle Vogt. “By developing the next-generation self-driving platform in San Francisco and manufacturing these cars in Michigan, we are creating the safest and most consistent conditions to bring our cars to the most challenging urban roads that we can find.”
The new generation autonomous Chevrolet Bolt’s come equipped with advanced features including LIDAR sensors, cameras and other hardware specifically designed to help an autonomous vehicle function safely and reliably.
“This production milestone brings us one step closer to making our vision of personal mobility a reality,” said Barra. “Expansion of our real-world test fleet will help ensure that our self-driving vehicles meet the same strict standards for safety and quality that we build into all of our vehicles.“
The new vehicles will help GM accelerate its testing in urban environments, which are among the most challenging for autonomous cars to navigate, according to Barra.
GM has been collaborating with Lyft on self-driving vehicle technology since early last year, when it invested $500 million in the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company. Lyft has also recently announced partnerships with some GM rivals, including Google’s Waymo and British-based automaker, Jaguar Land Rover. However, Barra explained that GM’s partnership with Lyft was never meant to be exclusive.
“We’re working together in one space and competing in another,” she said.
GM officials expect their self-driving fleet to grow to a total of 180 vehicles once the first round of production wraps up.