General Motors is to start testing autonomous vehicles on public roads in Michigan.

The move, which comes a week after the signing of SAVE Act legislation to support autonomous vehicle testing and deployment in Michigan, will start with roads near to GM’s Technical Center in Warren. Within the next few months, testing will expand to metro Detroit, which will become GM’s main location for development of autonomous technology in winter climates.

GM also announced it will produce the next generation of its autonomous test vehicles at its Orion Township assembly plant beginning in early 2017. The plant currently manufactures the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Sonic and will in future build test fleet Bolt EVs equipped with fully autonomous technology.

The test fleet vehicles will be used by GM engineers for continued testing and validation of GM’s autonomous technology already underway on public roads in San Francisco and Scottsdale, Arizona, as well as part of the Michigan testing fleet.

Earlier this year GM announced the creation of a dedicated autonomous vehicle engineering team and a $500m investment in Lyft to develop an integrated network of on-demand autonomous vehicles in the US. This was followed by the acquisition of Cruise Automation in March to provide deep software talent and rapid development expertise to help speed development.

“Revolutionising transportation for our customers while improving safety on roads is the goal of our autonomous vehicle technology, and today’s announcement gets us one step closer to making this vision a reality,” said General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra. “Our autonomous technology will be reliable and safe, as customers have come to expect from any of our vehicles.”