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Luxury car brand Cadillac could soon be ditching its 1950s finned glamour for a futuristic identity: that of a hydrogen-powered car which drives itself.
Rick Waggoner, chief executive of General Motors, which owns Cadillac, told the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that the company wanted to revolutionise the car industry by dropping reliance on fossil fuels and handing over control of cars to robot drivers.
He said work was progressing well. "We're putting resources like crazy into it and we haven't seen anything yet that says we've hit a glitch on it," he said.
The car, nicknamed Boss, is being developed in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University, with an eye on public testing by 2015 and full production three years later.
"The technology exists right now to move cars without a driver," said a GM spokesman. "This (model) would know where all the vehicles are around it, dramatically reduce accidents and even reduce congestion."
It is not the first time that great claims have been made for driverless technology, but advances in software and communications are making it more attractive.
Green vehicles are also getting attention at the conference, with GM planning to launch Provoq by 2010, which can hit 100mph but emits only water vapour.
There is large market for environmentally friendly cars, with Toyota's Prius hybrid vehicle already popular in the US. New manufacturer Tesla Motors, based in the technology hot spot of Silicon Valley rather than the automotive heartlands of America's midwest, is hoping to launch its first electric sports car early this year.
Evidence at the conference suggested big changes in the car industry over the next 10 years, with a slew of new launches on display.
Although the Las Vegas conference, the largest technology trade show in the world, is primarily attended by electronics and computer firms, car manufacturers are out in force this year in an attempt to paint themselves as innovative, hi-tech companies.
Hundreds of gadgets for drivers are being launched, including in- car stereos which can hook up to MP3 players wirelessly, and satellite navigation systems that update information on journeys using data gathered from your own car.
