Autonomous Chevrolet Bolt EV Coming Sooner Than Anticipated

[mark111]

Pam Fletcher, executive chief engineer of autonomous tech at GM, told Tech Insider:

“So what I would say is this car (Chevrolet Bolt EV) is a big part of a transformation of transportation and mobility.”

Chevrolet Bolt EV Interior
Chevrolet Bolt EV Interior
She didn’t specify a timeline as to when the Chevy Bolt may be released to the public with autonomous technology or as part of an autonomous ride-sharing program, but she did make it clear that it would be sooner than expected.

General Motors invested $500 million in Lyft ride-sharing company back in January after it announced such plans at CES. Two months later, the company bought autonomous tech start-up Cruise Automation.

By May, Cruise Automation was actively testing its self-driving tech on Chevy Bolts. Lyft and Cruise aren’t working together as of yet, but it seems that that will be the future direction of the anticipated programs.

Wall Street Journal reported that GM may have a fleet of Lyft self-driving cars on public roads for testing prior to the end of this year. Fletcher explained:

“We have not made that announcement yet, but what I would say is this is all coming much faster than people anticipate, so I’ll say that much. We have been transparent about that. We are working on an on-demand ride-sharing network with Lyft, it’s not something we are thinking about, it’s something we are very much readying for consumer use.”

Fletcher is a big fan of EVs and was GM’s chief engineer for electric vehicles prior to moving to the autonomous car program. She sees the Bolt EV as the perfect vehicle for autonomy and more specifically, for fleets and public transportation. The affordable, long-range, all-electric crossover will go into production in October. Fletcher said:

“They (EVs) operate very smoothly, they operate very quietly, seamlessly, and so you can create this very positive experience inside the car. People they want that, they want to get in the car and for it to feel like a cocoon, so they can take a nap or have a conference call.”

http://insideevs.com/autonomous-chevrolet-bolt-ev-coming-sooner-anticipated/

 

[Diggle]

Most EVs look like ICE vehicles with the functionless front hood. Chevrolet Bolt has changed that and went for a different design approach with a more compact space for the electric motor.

 

[SeanNelson]

Most EVs look like ICE vehicles with the functionless front hood. Chevrolet Bolt has changed that and went for a different design approach with a more compact space for the electric motor.

Actually ICE engineers can do a pretty good job of keeping the hood pretty compact when they want to. Look at this comparison of the Prius C (the car that I currently drive) with the Bolt. It's roughly to scale (the Bolt has a 102-inch wheelbase while the Prius C is 100 inches):

It's uncanny how similar the proportions of hood, passenger and cargo space are. And that's despite the fact that the Prius C has the gas engine as well as the electric motors in the drive train, and it has a fuel tank in addition to its (quite small) battery.

The Bolt is higher, but much of that is to accommodate the floor pan battery. It's also almost 3 inches wider, which will probably help to give it a roomy feel.

Aside from the fact that it burns gas I'm very happy with my Prius C, which is why I'm so excited about the Bolt - it's got that compact form factor that I really like. I just wish it had the Prius C's incredibly tight turning radius (Bolt = 35.5 ft, Prius C = 31.4 ft).

 

[new2evs]

According to Ralph Nader he feels that there are far too many complex variables that are beyond the range of silicon Valley's algorithms for fully autonomous cars he feels the fully autonomous car will not replace the human driver and is not as safe as the human driver he does support semi autonomous capabilities

 

[voltage]

Tesla is the one who is most up on the marketing for the autonomous driving vehicle however in regards to the Chinese accident in Beijing with the Tesla they have removed the words autopilot and self-driving from the the Chinese website Tesla insist that they have never marketed or refer to the Tesla technology as self-driving or autopilot

 

[new2evs]

Oh I'm sure I've heard or read in articles that Tesla refers to the technology of self-driving

 

[sam]

How are pedestrians supposed to react to self driving Vehicles we have a certain anticipation and Assumption of what a driver will react and how they will react to us but what happens when it is non-human driver?

 

[JimmYK]

I don't know much about autonomous cars. Can anyone explain how it works?