Autonomous vehicles are already navigating the verdant hills of Pittsburgh and cruising the pitched avenues of San Francisco. They may soon be tested by the chaos of downtown Manhattan, where pedestrians, taxis, buses and bikes embark daily on an eternal quest to avoid impact.
Cruise Automation, a self-driving software company owned by General Motors, aims to begin testing in New York early next year. They’ll have an engineer behind the wheel to monitor performance.
Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt says the densely populated city of more than 8 million people will give the company more unusual situations to test software and accelerate the work on the technology.
Testing in New York is allowed under legislation included in the 2018 state budget. Cruise currently is testing in San Francisco.
