DETROIT – General Motors CEO Mary Barra expects the automaker to supply self-driving automobiles to customers later this decade.

Whereas autonomous automobiles for deliveries and ride-hailing providers are at the moment present process rigorous testing, manufacturing them for retail clients hasn’t been a precedence for automakers as a result of the expertise wanted for the methods is prohibitively costly.

“Later within the decade, I consider, and there is a lot to nonetheless unfold, however I consider we’ll have private autonomous automobiles,” she instructed traders Wednesday in the course of the firm’s first-quarter earnings call.

She didn’t particularly say GM would promote such automobiles on to customers. It may lease them or supply clients a subscription service prefer it did beforehand for Cadillac automobiles. A GM spokesman mentioned the corporate has no additional remark at the moment.

Barra’s feedback come after GM showcased a private autonomous automobile concept car for its Cadillac brand in January. The automobile was based mostly on the Origin, an autonomous shuttle from its majority-owned subsidiary Cruise.

GM has a two-pronged strategy relating to such methods. Cruise is main improvement of totally autonomous automobiles, whereas the automaker expands its superior driver-assist Tremendous Cruise system to 22 automobiles by 2023. Barra mentioned the aim for Tremendous Cruise is to finally supply hands-free driving in 95% of driving situations.

“Each paths are essential as a result of the expertise we placed on automobiles at this time, I believe makes them safer and delights the purchasers, and goes to offer us a possibility for subscription income,” she mentioned Wednesday. “After which the final word work that we’re doing at Cruise that’s full autonomous actually opens up extra potentialities and I believe we will define at this time.”

Tremendous Cruise at the moment permits hands-free driving on greater than 200,000 miles of pre-mapped highways within the U.S. and Canada. Different methods, particularly Tesla’s Autopilot, supply larger capabilities however require drivers to “check-in” by touching the steering wheel.

The principle variations between Tremendous Cruise and Autopilot embrace a driver-facing infrared digital camera to observe attentiveness and the pre-mapped roads that work with onboard radar, sensors and cameras to drive the automobile.

Commercializing autonomous automobiles has been far more difficult than many predicted just some years in the past.

In 2018, GM introduced plans to launch ride-hailing providers with self-driving automobiles that do not have handbook controls akin to steering wheels and pedals in 2019. It indefinitely delayed those plans to conduct additional testing.

In April 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk mentioned that the automaker would ship a automobile and not using a steering wheel inside 2 years, nonetheless the corporate has not given an replace on these plans. Tesla didn’t reply to an electronic mail in search of remark.

Tesla is at the moment beta testing a next-generation of its system marketed as a ”full-self driving” premium possibility for $10,000. Just some homeowners get entry to the beta model of the self-driving system. Regardless of the title, Tesla has instructed the California DMV that the system is not totally autonomous, based on correspondence between the corporate and company obtained by CNBC and different media retailers.

Final yr, GM confirmed plans for a system known as “Extremely Cruise,” nonetheless it has not launched particulars of the next-generation expertise.

– CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.