DETROIT – General Motors Co announced it acquired LIDAR technology company
Strobe, Inc. As part of the deal, Strobe’s engineering talent joins GM’s Cruise
Automation team to define and develop next-generation LIDAR solutions for
self-driving vehicles.
“Strobe’s LIDAR technology
will significantly improve the cost and capabilities of our vehicles so that we
can more quickly accomplish our mission to deploy driverless vehicles at
scale,” said Kyle Vogt, Founder and CEO, Cruise Automation.
LIDAR uses light to create
high-resolution images that provide a more accurate view of the world than
cameras or radar alone. As self-driving technology continues to evolve, LIDAR’s
accuracy will play a critical role in its deployment.
“The successful deployment
of self-driving vehicles will be highly dependent on the availability of LIDAR
sensors,” said Julie Schoenfeld, Founder and CEO, Strobe, Inc. “Strobe’s deep
engineering talent and technology backed by numerous patents will play a
significant role in helping GM and Cruise bring these vehicles to market sooner
than many think.”
Recently Cruise Automation
revealed the world’s first mass-producible car designed with the redundancy and
safety requirements necessary to operate without a driver. The vehicle will
join Cruise’s testing fleets in San Francisco, metropolitan Phoenix and
Detroit.
Cruise
Automation introduced its third-gen automated vehicle. The new vehicles will be
part of its San Francisco-based test fleet.
The company’s
developed a new microchip Lidar system would significantly enhance the
capabilities of the self-driving cars GM was developing, Vogt stated to the
media.
Kyle Vogt founder
and CEO of Cruise said they are reducing the entire sensor down to a single
chip, the system cuts the cost on its self-driving cars by 99%, he said.
The technology provided not just a distance measurement for an object on the
road – vehicles, people and objects – but also measured that object’s velocity.
“Strobe’s LIDAR technology will
significantly improve the cost and capabilities of our vehicles so that we can
more quickly accomplish our mission to deploy driverless vehicles at scale,”
said Vogt.
GM purchased
Cruise Automaker for $1 billion last year and then basically turned over the
keys to its automated vehicle development to the San Francisco-company. Earlier
this year, GM said it planned to spend $600 million in 2017 on self-driving
vehicles. That number may apply to 2018 too.
Lidar is what
an autonomous vehicle uses to “see” when it’s on the road. It uses light to
create high-resolution images that provide a more accurate view of the world
than cameras or radar alone. As self-driving technology continues to evolve,
Lidar’s accuracy will play a critical role in its deployment.
“The
successful deployment of self-driving vehicles will be highly dependent on the
availability of Lidar sensors,” said Julie Schoenfeld, founder and CEO, Strobe,
Inc. “Strobe’s deep engineering talent and technology backed by numerous patents
will play a significant role in helping GM and Cruise bring these vehicles to
market sooner than many think.”
Cruise
Automation revealed the world’s first mass-producible car designed with the
redundancy and safety requirements necessary to operate without a driver. The
vehicle will join Cruise’s testing fleets in San Francisco, metropolitan
Phoenix and Detroit.
GM’S CFO Chuck
Stevens announced it plans to launch its first semi-autonomous system, the
Cadillac Super Drive, in the 2018 Cadillac CT6. GM’s first fully self-driving
car coming to market will be a version of the electric Chevrolet Bolt EV.
Cruise has
recently introduced its third generation of fully
autonomous factory-built test vehicles. Kyle Vogt described the
third-generation vehicle as “the world’s first mass-producible car designed to
operate without a driver. This isn’t just a concept design, it’s assembled in a
high-volume assembly plant in Orion Township, Michigan, out of
Detroit capable of producing 100,000’s of vehicles per year,” he said.
BRUCE HUBBARD
BONNIE LYNCH
AUTO ADVISOR GROUP
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