A General Motors executive says he believes Google could become a "serious competitive threat" to the entire auto industry if it pursues its self-driving cars.
“Anybody can do anything with enough time and money,” said Mark Reuss, product-development chief at GM, told Bloomberg. “If they set their mind to it, I have no doubt” that they could become “a very serious competitive threat.”
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Reuss' assertion comes after Google announced this week that it plans to deploy 100 self-driving vehicles this year. The innocuous-looking cars hit a top speed of 25 mph. Google has been working with an unnamed Detroit-based manufacturer on the project.
GM, which has been beset by massive recalls this year, has demonstrated a technology called Super Cruise that will support semi-automated driving features including braking, speed control and hands-off lane following. Reuss says he thinks the industry will phase in autonomous autos over several years. “It’s going to be a creep, it’s not going to be a mind-bending thing,” Reuss said. “I don’t think you’re going to see an autonomous vehicle take over the city anytime soon.”
John J. Leonard, a middle-aged Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticist also told The New York Times that “I do not expect there to be driverless taxis in Manhattan in my lifetime.”