Self-driving Vehicles Available in a Couple of Years

GM announced at the opening ceremony for the World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems that it is planning to release a quasi-self-driving vehicle, which adjusts its own speed via wireless communication with other vehicles, in two years of time. The ceremony was held on Sept. 7 (local time) in Detroit, Michigan.

Specifically, GM is going to include inter-vehicle wireless communication in the 2017 Cadillac CTS, which will be available from the summer of 2016. Wireless transmitters and receivers will be in operation to share speed, location, and the necessity of deceleration with nearby vehicles. In addition, cameras and radar equipment are used to maintain a constant distance from the vehicle ahead, stay in the lane, and to stop automatically when traffic demands it.

In fact, other automakers like Mercedes Benz have already unveiled cars providing similar functions during low-speed driving. However, GM’s is the first one that is capable of both wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communication and quasi-self-driving on expressways.

These days, an increasing number of countries are working on such technology for accident prevention based on information sharing. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Korea began the examination of similar techniques, including radar-based emergency detection, in July this year and is aiming to put them into commercial use before the end of 2017.