GM首款自动驾驶汽车仍将由人驾驶

通用汽车将在几年内为拼车服务公司Lyft部署自动驾驶汽车网络，但有一个条件。GM负责策略和全球业务规划的副总裁麦克•埃布尔森在上周二的参议院听证会上表示，刚开始这些自动驾驶车辆将配备司机。

在这次自动驾驶车辆听证会上，埃布尔森说GM希望通过拼车来推广自动驾驶汽车技术。

他指出：“我们对这项技术的推广将从配备驾驶员的车辆开始，原因是我们确实也认为自己需要收集数据，并且确保这些系统的运转情况符合我们的预期。随后我们才会真的开始部署没有司机的车辆。我们认为按照这样的框架，我们可以用非常安全的方式来开发和使用这项技术。”

埃布尔森称，GM预计没有司机的自动驾驶汽车将在今后几年内出现。

他还说：“此类无人车辆真正投入使用的时间，将取决于技术发展的水平以及和监管部门商定出的标准。”

GM的目标是率先推出自动驾驶汽车。该公司首席执行官兼董事长玛丽•芭拉在2月份的业绩通报会上曾提到这一点。GM及其新业务伙伴Lyft相信，要把自动驾驶汽车技术带给大众，覆盖范围最广、成本最低的途径就是拼车。虽然拼车技术已经成熟，但自动驾驶车辆仍存在一系列技术、安全、监管、法律和网络安全问题。解决这些问题后，自动驾驶车辆才能为公众所用。

不过，GM的做法并非没有风险。目前还不清楚该公司的第一批自动驾驶汽车会是什么样。比如说，它们是全自动的吗？会安装方向盘和踏板，以便驾驶者在必要时控制车辆吗？如果是的话，假如通过Lyft平台前来拼车的普通人恰巧没怎么学过开车，GM就得承担相当大的责任。

GM悄悄地开发自动驾驶汽车技术已有一段时间。但在过去一年中，GM对这项计划变得特别公开和积极。

今年1月，GM向Lyft投资5亿美元。就此发布公告后不久，GM就推出了名为Maven的拼车服务，它囊括了GM现有的几个测试项目，而且进行了扩展。

GM还收购了Sidecar的资产，后者是一家叫车服务商，现已停止运营。上周，GM斥资逾10亿美元收购了从事自动驾驶汽车技术开发的初创公司Cruise Automation。本周一，GM和Lyft推出了车辆短租项目，目的是让更多司机参与到叫车服务中。

谷歌、德尔福和Lyft的高层以及杜克大学人类和自主实验室主任也在这次自动驾驶车辆听证会上作了证。(财富中文网)

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

General Motors will deploy a network of self-driving cars within Lyft’s service in a couple of years—but with a catch. In the beginning, those automated vehicles will have drivers, said Mike Ableson, GM’s vice president of strategy and global portfolio planning, during a Senate Commerce hearing on last Tuesday.

GM envisions introducing self-driving car technology through ride-sharing, Ableson said during the discussion on autonomous vehicles.

“We would introduce it originally as vehicles with drivers, because we do agree we need to collect data and make sure the systems are operating as we expect them to before we actually start deploying the vehicles without drivers,” Ableson said. “We think this offers a framework that we can develop and deploy this technology in a very safe way.”

Ableson said GM expects the self-driving vehicles with drivers to appear within the next couple of years.

“When they actually start working without drivers will depend on how the technology develops and what the criteria agreed with the regulators are,” he added.

GM’s aim is to be the first to introduce self-driving cars—an intention that CEO and Chairman Mary Barra mentioned in the company’s February earnings call with analysts. General Motorsand its new business partner Lyft, believe ridesharing is the broadest, most cost effective way to bring self-driving car technology to the masses. And while ridesharing technology is ready to go, self-driving cars still have a number of technical, safety, regulatory, legal, and cybersecurity issues to be solved before they can be used by the public.

But the company’s approach isn’t without risk. It isn’t clear what these first GM self-driving cars would look like. For example, will they be fully autonomous cars that are equipped with steering wheels and pedals so a driver could take control, if needed? If so, the automaker faces considerable liability if a regular person who happens to give rides through the Lyft platform isn’t properly trained.

GM has worked quietly on autonomous vehicle technology for some time. In the past year, it’s been particularly public and aggressive about its plans.

In January, the automaker invested $500 million into Lyft. Shortly after that announcement, the the company launched a car-sharing service called Maven, which combines and expands several of its existing test programs under one brand.

GM also purchased the assets of the now defunctride-hailing service Sidecar, and last week spentmore than $1 billion for self-driving tech startup Cruise Automation. On Monday, GM and Lyft launched a short-term car rental program aimed at bringing on more drivers to the ride-hailing service.

Executives from Google, Delphi, and Lyft, as well as the director of Duke University’s Humans and Autonomy Lab also testified at the hearing on self-driving cars.