GM plans to release cars with no steering wheel in 2019

If the Department of Transportation grants GM's latest Safety Petition, the automaker will be able to deploy its no-steering-wheel, pedal-less autonomous car next year. GM has not only revealed what its level 4 self-driving vehicle will look like -- in a video you can watch after the break -- but also announced that it filed a Safety Petition to be able to deploy its completely driverless version of Chevy Bolt called Cruise AV in 2019. The company describes it as "the first production-ready vehicle built from the start to operate safely on its own, with no driver, steering wheel, pedals or manual controls." As you can see above, Cruise AV is much different from the self-driving Chevy Bolts GM is testing in California. It has no controls whatsoever, not even buttons you can push -- it 100 percent treats you as a passenger, no matter where you sit.