Self-driving cars are coming to New York City as General Motors Corp. announced that it will be the first company to deploy the nascent technology on the streets of Manhattan starting next year.

GM will be testing a fleet of Level 4 automated Chevrolet Bolts fitted out by Cruise Automation Inc., the self-driving car startup GM acquired back in 2016 for over $1 billion. The move was described by The Wall Street Journal as “a threat to the thousands of taxi drivers piloting yellow cabs around New York, as autonomous robot-taxis operated by GM and its rivals are seen eventually displacing human drivers.”

Taxi drivers aside, the move by GM to bring self-driving cars to New York was welcomed by politicians. New York Governor Anthony Cuomo said in a statement that “autonomous vehicles have the potential to save time and save lives, and we are proud to be working with GM and Cruise on the future of this exciting new technology.”

The announcement is notable due to the fact it’s the first time self-driving cars have been deployed on the notoriously busy streets of New York City. But the test is far from the first time GM has deployed self-driving vehicles on city streets. The company first started testing its autonomous vehicles on the streets of Warren, Michigan, in 2016, before later expanding the testing program to San Francisco in August.

Never humble with its ambitions, GM announced in February that it was looking to deploy “thousands” of self-driving vehicles in partnership with ride-hailing partner Lyft Inc. beginning in 2018. GM claimed only last month that it was ready to start mass-producing vehicles with “fully autonomous hardware built in.”

The decision to test in NYC came about after the state finally approved legislation to allow autonomous vehicles on its roads in April.

Photo: Cruise Automation