- Cruise Automation is a California startup bankrolled by GM and Honda.
- The company has been testing specially built self-driving Chevrolet Bolt EV crossovers in the San Francisco Bay Area since September 2016.
- This new rear-wheel drive minivan-looking electric bus will hold four passengers—no drivers, though—and is expected to be producible for half the cost of a conventional EV.
There’s no lack of hype surrounding autonomous vehicles in Silicon Valley. Today, autonomous-vehicle startup Cruise Automation ratcheted up the self-driving buzz even more by unveiling the electric driverless bus shown here. The company says it expects its Level 4 (autonomous without steering wheel and pedals, but limited to a particular area) vehicle to start offering rides via a Cruise pilot program.
The Cruise Origin was unveiled at the company’s “Moving beyond the Car” event in San Francisco. It’ll hold four passengers with plenty of legroom. The doors open like the back doors of a minivan. While the company was acquired by GM in 2016 and has Honda investment, the ride-hailing service will be branded Cruise. The electric platform is built by GM, but the company otherwise gave no specs—not battery size, not range, not price, not even where it will be built.
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The Origin resembles many of the other squarish small buses we’ve seen from startups and automakers. It’s a bit like a smaller Toyota e-Pallet. The outside corners are home to sensors, including lidar. On the current Cruise vehicles—Chevrolet Bolt EVs—a crown of technology made of roof-mounted radar, lidar, and cameras helps guide them through the city.
Getting the autonomous bus on the road will require additional research and testing. The company spoke briefly about the trials of driving on busy San Francisco streets and how much that has helped them improve their artificial intelligence. During three years of testing using Chevy Bolt EVs with safety drivers, the startup says it has built three or four generations of the vehicle. This newest generation—built without steering wheel or pedals—has not been driven on public roads yet.
As for regulators, Ammann says that the company is talking with NHTSA about bringing the Origin to the road. Having it built by GM should give the startup a leg up over other mobility companies in that regard.
Unfortunately, even with GM on the hook for production, Cruise was mum about essential details about the vehicle. Cruise didn’t share any information about battery size, range, power rating, how it’ll charge, top speed, or how far the sensor suite can see. Where it’ll be built won’t even be announced for a few days. What we do know is that the vehicle is rear-wheel drive and claimed to be able to last a “million miles.”
The inside of the Origin is spacious. It seats four comfortably and if push comes to shove, it can seat six. No one will be comfortable, but it’s possible. Under each seat is enough room for each passenger to slide their carry-on bag. Anything larger and the vehicle’s storage at the front and back is available. Adjacent to each seat are charging ports, door lock buttons, and door controls.
Directly across from the passengers on both sides of the vehicle is a screen that shows upcoming stops and while in motion where the vehicle is going along a map. GM chief engineer of the Cruise Jason Fisher said that sharing that information with customers helps build trust. “A level of trust with the customer that the vehicle is seeing things that the customer is probably wondering if the vehicle is actually seeing,” Fischer said. It’s a bit of a reassurance that the robot driving you around town sees what you see.
Roberto BaldwinCar and Driver
Some of that trust also involves the passengers initiating the vehicle’s movement. Once they’ve sat down and put on their seatbelt, they press an orange button in the door to start the Origin back up and on to its next destination.
Even though Cruise is backed by two major automakers (Honda and GM), CEO Dan Ammann is not a fan of the urban-transportation status quo. In a Medium post titled “We Need to Move beyond the Car” from December, he lambasted not only the one-driver, one-car commute scenario but also ride-hailing services that do little to ease congestion and in fact have been shown to increase gridlock. Ammann’s plan would work with municipalities to augment their current public transportation systems.
“We know the bus is better for the environment,” Ammann said during the event. But as he noted, that’s not always convenient. That’s where he hopes the Cruise system fills the gap between public transportation and vehicle ownership.
The Origin may be getting all the press right now, but it’s the company’s third-generation Chevy Bolts that will be the first to offer rides to customers via an upcoming app and service from Cruise. Ammann wouldn’t comment on when the service would be going live, but it’ll be ahead of the launch of the Origin.
Source: Motor - aranddriver.com
