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Today: Cruise to start driverless testing in California; Caterpillar grows its AV division; Local Motors plans to test its new Ollie 2.0 in Toronto. All this\u2026 right now.

Driverless Cruise

I\u2019ve been a big fan of GM\u2019s Cruise (formerly Cruise Automation) pretty much since ever. But I didn\u2019t agree with their announcement in 2019 that they would release to the world a true driverless car \u2014 sans steering wheel, mind \u2014 onto the chaotic streets of San Francisco by year\u2019s end.

First, I said it was an unlikely goal to achieve, which of course they didn\u2019t. Alternatively, even if they did achieve it\u2026 so what? What really matters is not so much the marketing hype of demonstrating to the world that you have an L5-capable vehicle, but rather that consumers are actually using it, like Waymo is doing in Arizona.

Now GM has become the fifth company in California to receive from the California Department of Motor Vehicles a driverless testing permit for their Cruise vehicle on the streets of California. But they still aren\u2019t testing them; at least not yet. More to the point, I still say \u201cso what\u201d in the sense that it would be vastly cooler to get paying customers in their cars on limited roads across San Francisco.

Caterpillar\u2019s Heavy Metal AV

While COVID-19 has obviously caused a bit of a slump in the real estate and construction sector, reflected by a sales dip in heavy metal machinery like Caterpillar\u2019s tractors and earth movers, their AV division is seeing a marked up-tick. Have a listen to find out why.

Ollie 2.0

Local Motors has signed a deal to start testing its Ollie 2.0 autonomous shuttle pods on the streets of Toronto starting in Spring 2021. But with seating for up to 8 passengers, I question their viability during these times of COVID, and suggest that something like driverless car rides like Waymo and (eventually) Cruise are vastly more relevant immediate solution.