Ford has detailed its multi-million dollar plans to build autonomous vehicles in Michigan, part of a $1.45 billion scheme to reinvent its auto business and catch up in electrification. The news comes shortly after Ford unveiled its first all-electric crossover, the 2021 Mustang Mach-E, which has already proved controversial among muscle-car fans.
Mercedes is bringing its autonomous cars to US roads, kicking off a pilot automated ride-hailing project that will see self-driving luxury sedans prowling select streets in Silicon Valley. The Urban Automated Driving project is deploying specially customized Mercedes-Benz S-Class cars, outfitted with special tech from Bosch, that can be summoned via an app and will then drive themselves to the destination.
Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving tech company, has officially launched a mobile app on iOS, making it possible for residents in Phoenix to directly hail one of the company's autonomous taxis. The app for iPhone joins the Android version Waymo launched on the Google Play Store earlier this year. The move hints at the eventual large-scale launch of the Waymo One robotaxi service.
It may be called Autopilot but Tesla's semi-automated driver assistance feature isn't as self-driving as many, including Tesla owners, presume it to be. It can't even detect traffic cones, which is essential to keeping away from dangerous road construction. That is slowly changing now that Tesla is rolling out pylon detection to its Autopilot feature but drivers should still keep their eyes on the road anyway.
MIT has announced the development of a new system that allows autonomous vehicles (AVs) to see better around corners. The new MIT system can sense tiny changes in shadows on the ground to determine if a moving object is coming around the corner. MIT says that AVs could one day use the system to quickly avoid a potential collision with a vehicle or pedestrian emerging from around the corner of a building or between parked cars.
Self-driving car news has taken a backseat these days and with controversies surrounding Tesla's Autopilot features, you might presume car makers have silently retreated, at least for a short while. That's not the case, of course, but autonomous driving proponents and developers have just become more cautious. In contrast to its usual proud announcements, Waymo is taking a laid back and almost secretive approach to revealing its future plans for its self-driving technology, including private tests of a rider-only service that is currently ongoing in Phoenix.
Toyota has announced that starting next summer in Japan, its Platform 4 (P4) automated driving test vehicle will begin offering rides to passengers. The rides in the autonomous car will be offered from July to September 2020. The P4 vehicle will demonstrate the Toyota SAE Level-4 capabilities in a mobility as a service driving environment.
Futurists and car makers envision a day when cars would drive themselves while humans sit back and relax or chat on the way to their destinations. that future is still far away given innumerable considerations but one can always start with baby steps, like getting out of the parking space on its own. That's what Tesla newly released Smart Summon was supposed to deliver but, confirming increasing reports from owners, Consumer Reports' review found it to be severely lacking, even dangerous.
Waymo's autonomous cars are exploring Los Angeles, with Alphabet's self-driving business weighing the possibilities in one of the most stressful driving environments in the US. The company - a spin-off of Google's driverless project - confirmed its fleet is spreading to LA this week, though no customer rides are planned at this stage.
Uber Advanced Technologies Group has announced plans to expand into Dallas, Texas, building upon its existing presence in Toronto, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. The company will start gathering data in the city in early November, the company revealed in a statement today, and it'll be kicking things off with manually-driven cars. The cars will be driven on the city's downtown streets.
What manual controls should be present in autonomous vehicles, how they should be tested as road-worthy, and just how advanced the current state-of-the-art is are all points of controversy, as US road safety regulators mull feedback on what might be holding back driverless technologies. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) threw down the gauntlet to skeptics, enthusiasts, and everyone in-between to comment on the challenges of control-free autonomous car regulations, and as you might expect the responses were spirited.
Ford is about to give its autonomous vehicles a whole new playground to test their driverless tech in, as it snaps up a simulation specialist already building virtual worlds for futuristic vehicles. The American automaker has acquired Quantum Signal, a Michigan firm which develops testing, algorithm, and military remote control software for autonomous platforms.