GM (GM): A Car That Will Drive Itself, But No One Will Buy

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 7, 6:20AM EST

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GM (GM) is about to announce that it is building a car that will drive itself. It can park, accelerate, break, and drive around traffic congestion.

According to The New York Times "the automaker expects driverless vehicle technology to be ready for testing by 2015 and in vehicles that it sells by 2018." That leaves a decade of people having to handle their own driving, to stay awake at the wheel, and to listen to the radio for traffic tie-ups.

One of the lessons that car companies may have learned by now is that consumers will only buy so many options. Some, like electric windows and doors, become so ubiquitous that the auto manufacturers have to make them standard equipment. Others, like GM’s OnStar communications product, never get much adoption.

The driverless technology is going to have to add huge costs to a car. All the other elements of an engine, brakes, seats, and a radio will have to be there. Not much can be thrown out to cut costs. Even if the technology is mass produced, it is hard to imagine that it will not up the cost of a vehicle by $5,000 or more. The number and complexity of the features is just to great.

Gas prices are likely to stay high for another decade or two. There is no sign that America, India, or China are going to swear off fossil fuels. The probably means that the typical consumer is going to watch how much he will pay for a new car and options. Unless, of course, the driverless tech comes standard.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.