GM's initial AVs likely to be equipped with manual controls, key exec says

General Motors' initial fleet of autonomous vehicles for public use will "most likely" include manual controls such as steering wheels and pedals, according to the company's head of electric and autonomous vehicles.

GM last year requested federal approval to launch such a fleet with its fourth-generation Cruise AV that does not include manual controls as early as this year. However, the U.S. government has been slow to grant safety exemptions for the vehicles, which do not meet existing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

"Until we have exemptions, which we filed a petition for, and/or law changes, we probably wouldn't go forward with Gen 4," Doug Parks, GM vice president of autonomous and electric vehicle programs, said Thursday during the 2019 RBC Capital Markets Future of Mobility Conference in Palo Alto, Calif. "But we think it's really something we've got to talk about, we've got to work on."

GM had not previously said it would exclusively launch the fleet without manual controls; however, the petition indicated GM sought to launch the vehicles in 2019 — the same year the company intended to launch the commercial service.

GM is testing its third-generation autonomous vehicles primarily in San Francisco, home of its GM Cruise autonomous vehicle operations.

The city is where the company is expected to initially launch the autonomous ride-hailing fleet.

The current, third-generation vehicles feature manual controls and include "safety drivers" who take control when needed. Parks said aside from the fourth-generation cars not having manual controls, the vehicles are essentially the same.

"When we're ready to deploy, we'll most likely deploy with the Gen 3 technology," he said, adding the vehicles meet safety standards and are production-ready.

Parks did not specify a time frame for the launch or whether GM would launch the self-driving fleet with safety drivers. Cruise CEO Dan Ammann in November 2017 said the company's goal was to launch a self-driving ride-hailing fleet without drivers in 2019.

Ammann and other executives, including GM CEO Mary Barra and President Mark Reuss, have consistently said the launch of the self-driving, ride-hailing fleet for public use would be "gated by safety" — a term Parks reiterated when asked about plans to launch the fleet this year.

GM, according to Parks, continues to work with NHTSA on launching the vehicles, whether they're third- or fourth-generation.

GM's petition was originally submitted in January 2018. It sat idle until March 2019, when the Department of Transportation issued a request for public comment on the petition.

GM is seeking exemptions from Federal Motor Vehicle safety Standards that assume a human drives a car and requires traditional controls.

If granted, the waiver would allow GM to launch as many as 2,500 vehicles a year as driverless taxis that could be summoned via a smartphone app and commanded using touch screens inside.