Obama Proposes $4 Billion Autonomous Vehicle Pilot Projects
January 17th, 2016In other news, self driving trucks will wipe out millions of jobs:
We are facing the decimation of entire small town economies, a disruption the likes of which we haven’t seen since the construction of the interstate highway system itself bypassed entire towns.
Via: Forbes:
Self-driving cars have a new supporter: President Obama.
After talking in his last State of the Union address this week about investing in the country’s transportation system, Obama and his Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced a 10-year, $4 billion plan to fund pilot projects that would accelerate the adoption of self-driving autonomous vehicles. Such programs, if funded in the fiscal year 2017 federal budget, will test connected vehicle systems in “designated corridors” around the country and work toward a multi-state regulatory framework that covers the industry.
“We are on the cusp of a new era in automotive technology with enormous potential to save lives, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and transform mobility for the American people,” Secretary Foxx said in a statement. “Today’s actions and those we will pursue in the coming months will provide the foundation and the path forward for manufacturers, state officials, and consumers to use new technologies and achieve their full safety potential.”
Foxx made the announcement from the Detroit Auto Show on Thursday alongside major automakers (including GM, Ford, Volvo, and Tesla) as well as Google. The news comes less than two weeks after GM invested $500 million in ride-sharing app Lyft to partner on automated vehicle technology. Ford has also reportedly been in talks on a partnership with Google, one of the leaders in self-driving car software.
