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The First Autonomous Car With No Steering Wheel Gets U.S. Approval: Video

Many people have said that the autonomous car will eventually make it to the consumer market for people to use who don’t want to do the actual driving. Some experts believe that the first place we will see autonomous cars in use will be in the commercial industry for delivering goods to consumers. The United States government has now cleared the very first autonomous car that has no driver seat, no steering wheel, and no pedals. The car is by a company called Nuro Inc. based in Mountain View, California.

Nuro Inc. has been approved to put as many as 5,000 of its autonomous R2 electric vehicles on the road over the next two years. The company got the green light from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after it filed a petition to put completely self-driving cars on the roads. The company brags that it is the first to be approved for a self-driving vehicle exemption.

Not only is this a big deal for Nuro, but it’s a big deal for the overall autonomous auto industry because it sets a precedent and clears the way for vehicles that do not allow human input. Many see autonomous vehicles with no human intervention as the wave of the future for safer highways and less traffic congestion. The caveat with the approval the NHTSA gave Nuro is that the vehicles can’t carry people, they can only carry packages.

The NHTSA plans to closely monitor the operations of the vehicle during and after the time granted by its exemption application. The vehicles the company will field are classified as low-speed and are unable to travel over 25 mph. They are built for city streets and will undoubtedly annoy many drivers with their leisurely pace. Nuro did promise that its vehicles would be monitored remotely at all times by experienced human operators who are trained in the vehicle systems and could take control if required. The intention is to use the vehicles for the last-mile delivery of all sorts of consumer products. Ford is currently testing autonomous cars around the country, including in Austin, but they have safety drivers behind the wheel.

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Source: Detroit News

Shane is a car guy with a fondness for Mustangs and off-roading.

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  1. Why would the Nuro “annoy many drivers with their leisurely pace”? Bicycles run even slower and few drivers are “annoyed” because they also have a right of way on public roads. Even horses are still allowed on public roads in many cities. So if drives are “annoyed” by slower vehicles, they should not be driving at all.

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