General Motors: Our self-drive cars are almost ready

General Motors has confirmed it will begin testing a fully autonomous fleet of Chevrolet Volts in late 2016.

Making the announcement during an investors conference, GM said soon a fleet of autonomous Volts will drive within GM’s Michigan facilities and be offered to its employees to travel around the Warren Technical Centre using a new car-sharing app.

All the passengers have to do is reserve a vehicle using the app and then select a destination - the range-extender hybrid will then do the rest.

The move to introduce real-world testing, albeit on private roads, will “accelerate” the development of the new technology, says engineers.

Next year GM says it will introduce semi-autonomous tech on production vehicles, with the all-new Cadillac CT6 being offered with a ‘Super Cruise’ that offers hands-off lane-keeping, braking and accelerator control. The system will also work in slow traffic.

The revelation that GM is rapidly develop its own self-drive tech proves it has some work to do before it catches up with some of its rivals like Audi who have already covered thousands of kms of testing on real roads.

As well as the self-driving cars, GM also revealed at the shareholders meeting that it is working on an electric bike and a new car-sharing scheme that it will trial in New York before moving on to other US cities.