The Big Story: They're Heeere! Autonomous Vehicles No Longer Science FictionThe Big Story: They're Heeere! Autonomous Vehicles No Longer Science Fiction

It’s official. Autonomous vehicles are a reality.

Operating along a 1-mile (1.6- km) route in downtown Detroit, purpose-built AVs are now in commercial use, shuttling up to 500 workers daily from parking lots to their offices in buildings scattered about a small section of the city.

The vehicles, converted Polaris GEM neighborhood electric vehicles, can travel at speeds up to 25 mph (40 km/h), but traffic and stoplights put the average at less than 20 mph (32 km/h). The project is the work of May Mobility, an Ann Arbor, MI-based tech start-up that is responsible for the vehicle’s Level 4 (geofenced) autonomous drive system. The vehicles themselves are converted to 6-passenger people carriers by contract assembler and parts supplier Magna at its facility in Troy, MI.