VOA慢速英语--加州批准Cruise公司测试无人驾驶汽车

A company testing driverless cars has received permission from the state of California to operate the vehicles without backup drivers.

The tests will be carried out by Cruise, the self-driving car company owned by General Motors.

Cruise reported last week that it got a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to let the self-driving cars travel on their own. The company plans to have them operating in San Francisco by the end of this year.

Cruise is still just testing its self-driving vehicles. But it plans to offer ride-sharing services in major cities across the United States in the future.

Until now, testing was only carried out with human backup drivers in all Cruise vehicles. Rules required the backup drivers to be inside the cars and ready to take control of the vehicles if necessary.

Cruise has completed enough testing to feel that it is now ready to safely operate the cars without humans, said company spokesman Ray Wert.

Wert said that Cruise will go neighborhood-by-neighborhood in San Francisco and launch the driverless vehicles slowly before spreading to the whole city. It will also hold community meetings to answer people's questions about the program.

"We understand that this is a trust race as much as it is a technology race," Wert told The Associated Press. "This is absolutely about making sure that we're doing this with San Francisco."

The approval in California followed a similar decision in Arizona. Arizona state officials approved a request by Waymo, a company owned by Google's parent company Alphabet Inc., to open its ride-sharing service to the public in vehicles without human drivers. The service was launched last week in the city of Phoenix¹.

The service, which serves a 129 square kilometer area in Phoenix, had already been available to a small group of riders for the past year. Waymo officials did not say how many fully² autonomous³ vehicles would be made available to the public.

"We are worried about our ability to meet demand with the capabilities⁴ of the vehicle we have right now," Waymo's chief John Krafcik said to reporters last week.

Industry experts say Waymo and Cruise are among the leaders in autonomous vehicle technology.

Progress toward autonomous vehicles slowed after one such vehicle struck a pedestrian during a test in Tempe, Arizona, in 2018. That vehicle was operated by Uber Technologies.

Steven Shladover is a research engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. He has studied autonomous driving for 40 years. Shladover says the latest moves by Waymo and Cruise are the next logical steps as the technology progresses.

"I don't see them as revolutionary steps, but they're part of this step-by-step progress toward getting the technology to be able to work under a wider range of conditions," he said.

Shladover said that although Cruise and Waymo program their vehicles to drive more conservatively than humans, both still need to progress safely. He noted⁵ that Cruise will first deploy⁶ its vehicles to easier areas in San Francisco before sending them into complex traffic situations.

Cruise Chief Executive Office Dan Ammann noted that its driverless vehicles are fully electric. He said this meets another major goal of the company: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions⁸. Gasoline-powered vehicles are the second largest cause of greenhouse gases. Such emissions have been linked to rising temperatures in Earth's atmosphere.

"We need big solutions," Ammann said. "And we need them now."

Words in This Story

autonomous – adj. independent and having the power to operate automatically without human involvement

capability⁹ - n. the ability of power to do something

pedestrian - n. a person who is walking in a city, along a road, etc.

logical – adj. using reason

revolutionary – adj. completely different from what was done before

greenhouse (gas) – n. relating to or caused by the warming of the Earth's atmosphere that is caused by air pollution

emission⁷ – n. the act of producing or sending out something (such as energy or gas) from a source

1 phoenix   

n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生

参考例句：

• The airline rose like a phoenix from the ashes.这家航空公司又起死回生了。
• The phoenix worship of China is fetish worship not totem adoration.中国凤崇拜是灵物崇拜而非图腾崇拜。

2 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

3 autonomous   

adj.自治的；独立的

参考例句：

• They proudly declared themselves part of a new autonomous province.他们自豪地宣布成为新自治省的一部分。
• This is a matter that comes within the jurisdiction of the autonomous region.这件事是属于自治区权限以内的事务。

4 capabilities   

n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities. 他有点自大，自视甚高。 来自辞典例句
• Some programmers use tabs to break complex product capabilities into smaller chunks. 一些程序员认为，标签可以将复杂的功能分为每个窗格一组简单的功能。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

5 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

6 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

7 emission   

n.发出物，散发物；发出，散发

参考例句：

• Rigorous measures will be taken to reduce the total pollutant emission.采取严格有力措施，降低污染物排放总量。
• Finally,the way to effectively control particulate emission is pointed out.最后，指出有效降低颗粒排放的方向。

8 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

9 capability   

n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等

参考例句：

• She has the capability to become a very fine actress.她有潜力成为杰出演员。
• Organizing a whole department is beyond his capability.组织整个部门是他能力以外的事。