If we expect our industry to thrive well into the future, we have to provide solutions. To do that, we have to be passionate and fearless advocates for safety technologies like vehicle-to-vehicle communication, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication and ultimately, fully autonomous driving.

No other suite of technologies offers so much potential for good, and it’s time to turn potential into reality. That’s why I’m announcing today that GM will put its first V2V-enabled car on the road in about two years. What’s more, I’m announcing that we will bring an advanced, highly automated driving technology to the market in the same timeframe.

We are not doing anything for the sake of the technology itself. We’re doing it because it’s what customers around the world want – and not just GM owners. That’s why I am asking ask all of you to accelerate your work in the field as well.

—Mary Barra

V2V communication technology could mitigate many traffic collisions and improve traffic congestion by sending and receiving basic safety information such as location, speed and direction of travel between vehicles that are approaching each other. It will warn drivers and can supplement active safety features, such as forward collision warning, already available on many production cars.

General Motors’ V2V technology has the potential to mitigate many traffic collisions by sending and receiving basic safety information—such as location, speed and direction of travel—between vehicles that are approaching each other. It will provide useful warnings to drivers, such as the “Hard Braking Ahead” warnings (top left and right) and the vehicle “Approaching Left” warnings (bottom left and right). Click to enlarge.

Cadillac’s Super Cruise uses a fusion of radar, ultrasonic sensors, cameras and GPS map data. Super Cruise will offer customers functionality including hands-off lane following, braking and speed control in certain highway driving conditions. The system is designed to increase the comfort of an attentive driver on freeways, both in bumper-to-bumper traffic and on long road trips.

A recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study estimated that the economic and societal impact of motor vehicle crashes in the United States is more than $870 billion per year.

Barra said that with work on automated driving on the highway well underway, the next big challenge on the road to fully automated driving is to tackle the urban environment, fraught with obstacles from jaywalkers and bike messengers to double-parked delivery trucks.

It will take 360 degrees of risk detection and enhanced driver assist features driven by incredibly powerful software. GM and Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated this when the “Boss,” our fully autonomous Chevy Tahoe, won the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007. The Boss navigated 60 miles of mixed traffic, intersections and stop signs 20 minutes faster than the runner up.

Commercializing a fully automated vehicle may take until the next decade, but the work we’ve done so far has given us invaluable insights into things like sensor fusion, which we use today on vehicles like the Cadillac CTS, which has a total of 18 electronic eyes.

—Mary Barra

Among the technologies and vehicles GM is showcasing at the ITS conference are:

• An automated Opel Insignia equipped with digital maps and GPS, six LIDAR sensors in the bumpers, and both V2V and V2I technology.

• Vehicle-to-Pedestrian technology that can warn drivers about the presence of people such as construction workers, paramedics and public safety officers, even if they’re hidden from view.

• An autonomous derivative of the Chevrolet EN-V urban mobility concept, which is tailored for the world’s mega-cities, as well as corporate and academic campus settings.