GM has already announced that they will have autonomous Chevy Bolts on the road as early as 2017. Where they expect to have a fleet available for Lyft to use to pick up customers. Remember, GM has invested about $500 million into Lyft, so it’s no surprise to see that these Chevy Bolts would be used by Lyft. While many companies are already testing autonomous vehicles of some sort in a test facility like Mcity in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it looks like GM is already testing them on public roads as an autonomous Chevy Bolt was spotted in San Francisco this week.
In the picture above, you’ll see the Chevy Bolt which is an all-electric car, and has an array of self-driving sensors on the roof. However, behind the wheel of this vehicle is the co-founder of Cruise Automation, Kyle Vogt. Remember, GM picked up Cruise Automation for $1 billion earlier this year. It appears that Vogt is still pretty engaged in the company, even after being acquired by GM. We’re unsure if GM will be testing more of these autonomous Chevy Bolts on the road in San Francisco in the next few weeks and months. But it wouldn’t be surprising.
Lyft is going to be using these Chevy Bolts in their fleet next year, and their hometown is in San Francisco. So it would make sense for them to start putting these Bolts into their fleet in San Francisco and then branch out from there. Ride-sharing services like Lyft and its main competitor, Uber, see autonomous vehicles as the next big step for their industry. As it means they can have more cars on the road without paying for more drivers. Additionally, autonomous vehicles have shown to be much safer than a vehicle driven by a person.
General Motors has big plans for the Chevy Bolt, it’s their first all-electric car and one of the very few that are priced under $30,000 (of course that’s after government credits and such). It’s also more of an SUV, so that it can fit more people if need be. Making it a good fit for Lyft to use to pick up their customers and deliver them to where they need to be.
