Autonomous Shuttles Are Coming To Downtown Detroit

Employees of the Dan Gilbert-owned Bedrock LLC in downtown Detroit will ride in autonomous shuttles next month as part of a pilot program with the Ann Arbor company May Mobility.

The shuttles will run from Oct. 9 to Oct. 13, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. The electric vehicles are manufactured by Polaris Industries Inc. PII, the business journal said.

The shuttles will be manned during the test drives and available to Bedrock staff for a total of 15 hours, Crain’s said.

The program was announced during the Technology in Motion conference in Detroit this week.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is expected to announce updated federal guidelines for self-driving vehicles Tuesday during a visit to a autonomous vehicle testing facility in Ann Arbor, according to Reuters.

The House of Representatives passed the SELF-DRIVE act Wednesday. If signed into law, the bill would allow for as many as 100,000 autonomous test cars to be deployed in the U.S. per year and bypass some safety standards that are applied to piloted vehicles, according to TechCrunch.

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