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General Motors Co. shot down speculation that it’ll spin off its business units working on self-driving vehicles and car-sharing, which one analyst has estimated could be worth as much as $30 billion.

As computer technology increasingly controls critical vehicle safety features and more cars are connected to the internet, the danger of a hacker taking control of vehicles is becoming less like a Hollywood movie plot and more like something that can actually happen.

General Motors says it “aims to solve some of the toughest transportation challenges created by natural disasters, complex logistics environments and global conflicts” with its new Silent Utility Rover Universal Superstructure.

California took another step Oct. 11 toward permitting testing of self-driving vehicles without a human driver, continuing a shift away from previous policies that companies criticized as being overly restrictive.

Truck platooning — also known by the more precise but less compelling term “cooperative adaptive cruise control” — will soon become available to trucking fleets interested in testing the latest in fuel-saving technology.

Volkswagen AG is flanking its push into electric cars with plans to roll out battery-powered commercial vehicles targeted at urban areas as growing public concerns about air quality boost demand.

Tesla Inc. pushed back the reveal of its semi-truck by three weeks as CEO Elon Musk focuses on boosting production of the cheaper sedan that the electric-car maker is counting on to dramatically increase sales.

General Motors announced Oct. 9 that it is buying Strobe, a Pasadena startup that makes lidar, a laser-based sensor that most autonomous vehicles use to see the world around them.

While advancements in autonomous — or self-driving — cars get much of the attention, development of self-driving commercial vehicles is speeding forward.