By Lindsey Cooke
Toronto, Ontario – June 10, 2019 – In this week’s autonomous vehicle report: Lyft’s self-driving vehicles have completed 50,000 rides, GM adds more road to its semi-autonomous driving system and a Youtuber takes Elon Musk’s word too far.
Lyft’s Autonomous Rides
Self-driving cars are already here, well at least ride-sharing ones in Vegas. With the help of global tech company, Aptiv — Lyft has completed 50,000 rides in its self-driving cars in Las Vegas over the course of one year. Last January the companies announced that they would be teaming up to provide an autonomous ride-sharing service. The technology is supplied by Aptiv while Lyft provides the ride-sharing service. Of course, while it’s still testing the waters, there is one person sitting in the drivers to ensure that everything runs smoothly. For about 95 percent of the riders this was their first experience riding in a self-driving car.
GM’s Road Addition
General Motors is adding 113,000 km of road across North America for its semi-autonomous driving system, Cadillac Super Cruise to operate on. Currently the Cruise system can travel on 210 km of highways. This means the system will expand to 320,000 km by the fourth quarter of this year. The new addition will also include cross traffic, which is something that has confused Tesla’s autopilot system. While Tesla’s system uses cameras, long-range radar and computers to identify objects in front of it, GM’s system uses cameras to detect if the drivers are paying attention to the road. Drivers are still able to take their hands off the wheel, but the system makes sure the driver is focusing on the road. If the driver isn’t paying attention, the vehicle will pull over safely to the side of the road.
Reckless Riding
Youtuber, Alex Choi who is known for posting videos with flashy cars posted a video to Instagram that people aren’t happy about. Choi posted a video riding in the passenger seat of his Tesla Model 3, with no one in the driver seat while driving down a highway.
It wasn’t long after that his video went viral and the comments started circulating the web. “Meanwhile, YouTuber and new #TeslaModel3 Performance owner, Alex Choi is posted this video to his Instagram story last night. It’s probably the most reckless thing that he’s done — and that’s saying something,” BrickSimple founder Det Ansinn tweeted. “” This Video of a YouTuber’s Tesla Driving on Autopilot With No One in the Driver’s Seat Is Deeply Stupid,” Jalopnik said.
Even though Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said Tesla cars “already have full self-driving capabilities on highways..” the company’s website says otherwise. “Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous,” the website says.
