The CEO of Cruise explains the challenges of building self-driving cars for today’s roads

Automakers big and small have been talking about the promise of autonomous vehicles for a long, long time. One engineering challenge that hasn’t been discussed much, says Dan Ammann, CEO of Cruise, is “to make sure that we’re building transportation for what’s happening on our roads today.”

But that, he adds, has been the self-driving car company’s “North Star, making sure that this technology is safe and is making a positive net impact on road safety.”

Ammann says his team believes that their autonomous vehicles will do just that—and they began testing driverless vehicles on the streets of San Francisco a year ago.

Ammann joins Fortune cohosts Ellen McGirt and Alan Murray on a recent episode of Leadership Next, a podcast about the changing rules of business leadership. The group discusses Cruise’s self-driving vehicles—and why the company’s work could help change the world and save the planet. Listen to the full episode below.

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