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Reuters reports that General Motors will test thousands of self-driving electric cars in partnership with Lyft in 2018:
General Motors Co plans to deploy thousands of self-driving electric cars in test fleets in partnership with ride-sharing affiliate Lyft Inc, beginning in 2018, two sources familiar with the automaker's plans said this week. It is expected to be the largest such test of fully autonomous vehicles by any major automaker before 2020, when several companies have said they plan to begin building and deploying such vehicles in higher volumes. Alphabet Inc's Waymo subsidiary, in comparison, is currently testing about 60 self-driving prototypes in four states.
Most of the specially equipped versions of the Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle will be used by San Francisco-based Lyft, which will test them in its ride-sharing fleet in several states, one of the sources said. GM has no immediate plans to sell the Bolt AV to individual customers, according to the source. The sources spoke only on condition of anonymity because GM has not announced its plans yet.
Also at Ars Technica, TechCrunch, and The Verge.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday February 20 2017, @10:37PM
> untested unlicensed uninsured illegal self driving cars
That's a little hyperbolic. The automakers did make sure that the cars would be legal by getting a green light from the CA legislature (unlike "FU ALL!" Uber). They're also licensed and insured, and I'm sure the policy rates do reflect the fact that they are indeed experimental and under test (currently, with human operators)...
I'm not sure what the current legal status of Lyft's Alt-Taxi service is... Uber is typically the ones breaking the rules they don't like to create a fait accompli before the politicos catch up.