"The primary goal of GM's autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicle development is safety," GM Director of Global Active Safety Electronics and Innovation John Capp said in a statement. "In the coming years, autonomous driving systems paired with advanced safety systems could help eliminate the crash altogether by interceding on behalf of drivers before they're even aware of a hazardous situation."

The goal of , on the other hand, is to give customers a personal chauffeur, and Google's robotic cars have already logged a reported 140,000 self-driven miles. Google's cars aren't quite ready for primetime, though, and one of its cars was even last August (Google claims the crash occurred while the car was in manual mode, but has not yet released the full details of the accident).

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