Understanding the Self-Driving Revolution

August 1, 2018

Lindsay Brooke

‘Reinventing the automobile’ is a phrase that’s almost cliché, but Larry Burns was showing us the real possibilities of doing just that, years before Waymo, Tesla, and various other interlopers crashed the scene. As GM’s VP of Research and Development from 1998 - 2009, Dr. Burns became the industry’s most ardent evangelist for vehicle electrification (BEVs and notably fuel cells), autonomous driving, connected mobility, by-wire controls, and bio fuels. He may be best known for championing, along with his technology director Chris Borroni-Bird, a series of innovative concept vehicles — AUTOnomy, HyWire, Sequel, EN-V — that were the unquestioned hits of the global auto-show circuit in the early 2000s.

Working with the full support of GM leader-ship — which spent nearly $750 million on advanced technology R&D in 2005 — Burns’ team showed how vehicle design, packaging, bill of material, and manufacturing could be transformed by the cars’ electronic technologies. The influence of their creativity is omnipresent in the latest production EVs today, notably in Tesla’s vehicle structure. Collaborating in (and winning) the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge for robotic vehicles with partners Carnegie Mellon University confirmed Burns’ belief that the autonomous future was possible — and vital for reducing road fatalities, congestion, and emissions.

While Burns and his GM Advanced R&D radicals were blowing minds (until GM’s bankruptcy ended their vanguard activity), distruptors of the tech world — Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, CMU’s Chris Urmson, Tesla founders Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, and others — were also exploring new mobility approaches. How the Detroit and Silicon Valley visionaries and their wildly disparate corporate and creative cultures ended up on convergent pathways — and in collaboration — is told by Burns in his new book, Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car — and How It Will Reshape Our World (Ecco/HarperCollins, $27.99).

This is a compelling read — well-written and packed with insights that could only come from a top-level technology leader who personally knows many of the key players. Industry insiders will find much value here, as well as all who are interested in vehicle development and technology.

Burns (supported by writer Christopher Shulgan) is also a fine and often humorous story teller — I’ve spent many hours with Larry during the past two decades as a journalist on the auto beat, but Autonomy’s 384 pages deliver interesting new twists and details to seemingly familiar subjects.

He covers a lot of new ground, too. His involvement with the Google/Waymo Chauffeur project as outside advisor (a role Burns continues today) sheds light on its brightest personalities. Burns also shares his views on decisions related to self-driving technology, including the risks of controversial public-roads testing, and the challenges still ahead. Autonomy chronicles a journey just begun.