This Self-Driving Car Could Be Mass Produced Right Here In Metro Detroit

Although Silicon Valley is making a play for Detroit’s crown as the automotive headquarters of the world, Detroit’s not going down without a fight.

Autoblog is reporting that driverless car startup Cruise Automation, purchased by General Motors for $1 billion last year, has a production-ready, mass-produceable self driving car. It’s going to be a version of the Chevy Bolt EV that’s assembled at the Orion Assembly Plant.

Per a Medium post, Cruise Automation CEO and Founder Kyle Vogt says:

“This isn’t just a concept design — it has airbags, crumple zones, and comfortable seats,” Vogt writes. “It’s assembled in a high-volume assembly plant capable of producing 100,000’s of vehicles per year, and we’d like to keep that plant busy.”

The test vehicles are already being produced at the Orion plant.

Even though it’s going to be awhile before self-driving cars hit the road full time, producing the cars of the future here in Michigan is good news. The rest of the story is on Autoblog here.