GM Launches University Self-Driving Chevy Bolt EV Competition

GM has now selected the 8 schools that will be participating in its previously announced self-driving Chevy Bolt EV competition/project.

The 8 schools are: Michigan Tech, Virginia Tech, the University of Toronto, Texas A&M, the University of Waterloo, Kettering University, the University of Michigan, and North Carolina A&T.

Teams from these 8 schools will have a total of 3 years to design and build their self-driving Chevy Bolt EVs. The results will eventually be tested on an urban testing course.

Engadget provides more: “GM is counting on these young ones to nail all the really hard stuff. The first major milestone comes in the Spring of 2018 — by then, the schools involved should be able to get their Bolts down a straight road without any obstacles.

“Tapping into this kind of institutional power is a smart move on GM’s part — savvy young researchers and engineers could dream up solutions that stodgy corporate brain trusts might miss. Including Kettering, Michigan Tech, and the University of Michigan was a no-brainer — thanks to their proximity, these schools have enjoyed long-standing relationships with the auto industry. Every other university on the list, though, has tested their own self-driving technologies as well. A related blog post from the University of Toronto sheds a little light on how big these efforts will be: UT’s team will lean on something like 100 students, with roles ranging from sensor calibration to algorithm design.”

That does make the effort sound like a serious one, but that doesn’t mean that anything useful will necessarily come out of it. It’ll be interesting, though, if anything does.