'Studies have shown that an autonomous fleet can effectively replace a much larger number of private vehicles in a city center, which represent both opportunity and challenge for original equipment manufacturers,' he said.

Interest is high, especially among the ride-sharing community, said Navigant senior research analyst David Alexander in a statement. It also predicted that 129 million autonomous-capable vehicles will be sold between 20. Market research firm Navigant Research recently predicted that 90 million light-duty vehicles with driverless features will be on the road by 2027.

If successful, May Mobility will buy more Polaris GEM vehicles and outfit them with the wires, sensors, tracking devices, dash displays and software conversions to create a fleet of driverless shuttles throughout downtown Detroit, where Bedrock has roughly 200 properties and scores of workers that could benefit from the 'gee whiz' transportation option.įord, General Motors, Toyota, Tesla, Google, and Uber are among those racing to develop semi- and fully autonomous vehicles in hopes of carving out a chunk of the $11 trillion transportation industry.įrank Douma, a policy program director at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs, said every company in Silicon Valley and Detroit is salivating over the money that could be made by helping to reduce and eventually eliminate the need for bus, taxi and other city drivers. Officials of Polaris, based outside the Twin Cities, said next month's test in Detroit will mark its 16th project pairing its electric vehicles with autonomous driving, though the company remains much better known for ATVs.įor May Mobility, its partnership with Bedrock, which is bankrolling the test, is its 'first customer relationship and we are really excited about moving this from a pilot to a full deployment,' Olson said.

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