General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) is trying its hand at autonomous cars. While Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is experimenting with the same, it’s General Motors that is actually going to launch semi-autonomous vehicle in the near future. Innovation in the automobile space used to be the forte of Japanese companies like Toyota Motor Corp (ADR) (NYSE:TM) and Honda Motor Co Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:HMC), who showed others how it’s done, but it seems that tide is reversing now. Phil LeBeau explained today on CNBC, what General Motors Company (NYSE:GM)’s plan are regarding autonomous plans and what its CEO, Marry Barra, feels about it in an interview he conducted with her.
“[…] Yesterday GM announced that it does plan to have a semi-autonomous vehicle, basically hands-free driving by 2016. Within the next couple of years, there will be an all new Cadillac with super cruise, essentially hands-free, foot-free, when you are talking about driving on the highway and the company will also be having vehicle-to-vehicle communication within its vehicle, probably within next two to three years,” LeBeau said.
LeBeau revealed that he has had the chance to drive some of these semi-autonomous vehicles recently at General Motors Company (NYSE:GM)’s testing grounds in Detroit. He feels that in the future, this technology will become fairly common and consumers are going to see much more in use. LeBeau also revealed that in his talks with Marry Barra, she said that she couldn’t pinpoint the time in future when fully autonomous vehicle will be a reality.
Barra feels that the transition towards autonomous vehicle will take place in steps. According to her, for autonomous cars to be a reality it is very important that customers trust it and for that to happen the cars need to work 100% of the time.
As of June 30, 2014, Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway owns over 32 million shares in General Motors Company (NYSE:GM), making it one of the largest shareholders in the company.
Disclosure: None
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