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GM, F & TM Form a Consortium for a Safe Autonomous Future

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The highly autonomous vehicles industry is still in its budding stage. In sync with the usual excitement surrounding the industry, uncertainties and safety standards pervade the industry. Per Randy Visintainer, the chief technology officer at Ford Motor Company (F - Free Report) Autonomous Vehicles, “autonomous vehicles need to operate safely and reliably in concert with infrastructure and other road users to earn the trust of the communities in which they are deployed.”

The high-tech nature of the auto industry and its rapidly evolving self-driving vehicles placed its regulators on tenterhooks regarding what should be the ideal safety norms for this space.

In a bid to help regulators frame appropriate rules pertaining to the industry, three major global auto biggies, namely General Motors Company (GM - Free Report) , Ford and Toyota Motor Company (TM - Free Report) joined forces with the automotive engineering group SAE International to lay down autonomous vehicle safety guiding principles for the benefit of the industry.

Formation of a Consortium

While there is widespread euphoria associated with the roll-out of the autonomous vehicles, the sector has its shares of safety concerns too. In fact, last March, in a fatal accident, the ride-hailing giant Uber’s driverless vehicle killed a pedestrian in Tempe, AZ. This brought this nascent industry’s safety issue to the fore, serving a wake-up call. The regulators are also exercising caution against passing on any sweeping regulations.

Last year, US lawmakers failed to reach a consensus on the standardization of safety rules for the industry. The efforts to implement legislations for the vehicles without human control were abandoned.

Conclusion

Nevertheless, with promises abound, the autonomous driving evolution of this game-changing industry continues unabated. At the crossroads, the collaboration among the three auto giants is of huge significance. Management of these companies stated that they were building a consortium to help draft the safety norms for autonomous vehicles that in turn, will facilitate devising the directives in the United States.

Currently, General Motors carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Among the other two stocks, Ford has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) while Toyota carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Toyota, General Motors and Ford have an expected long-term growth rate of 6%, 8.9% and 9.1%, respectively.

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