GM to launch autonomous ride-share vehicles

General Motors, GM has announced they are set to launch commercial autonomous ride-share vehicles at scale within two years. This is all down to GM wanting to reduce the costs of self-driving technologies and move into service-based operations such as ride sharing. The automaker expects to deploy the fleets in “dense urban areas” by 2019, GM President Dan Ammann said during an investor event Thursday in San Francisco. Revenue from the fleets, he said, is forecast to be in the billions soon after launch. The comments during the investor event are the first public confirmations that GM plans to enter ride-sharing against Uber and Lyft, which the automaker invested $500 million in last year. GM did not specify where the fleets will launch. The company is currently testing a third-generation of self-driving vehicles in several states in the United States and has plans to begin testing in New York City next year. Ammann said GM expects to the cost-per-mile of its autonomous ride-sharing vehicles under $1 by 2025 -- a key, he said, to achieving profitable scale.  “We see a pretty clear path on how we can do that,” he told investors, citing GM’s plans for “Rideshare 2.0” with autonomous vehicles that don’t require paying drivers a majority of their revenue.