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Most of Toyota's cars will talk to each other by 2025
Toyota's first vehicles that communicate with each other will be up for sale in the US starting in 2021. By the mid-2020s, "most" of Toyota and Lexus' lineup will feature Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) the company says. Since 2015, the automaker has installed the tech in around 100,000 cars in its native Japan, according to Reuters. The automaker pointed toward its automatic emergency braking systems pledge from 2015 as proof of intent. Now, Toyota says 92 percent of its US sales are cars with its Toyota Safety Sense or Lexus Safety Sense braking tech as standard equipment.
Audi's traffic light countdown tech comes to Washington DC
Audi's traffic light countdown has been rolling out very slowly in the US (it's active in just seven cities so far), but it just made one of its biggest expansions yet: it's now available in Washington, DC. Pull up to one of 600 connected intersections in the country's capital and your compatible Audi will tell you how long you have before the light turns green. You shouldn't be caught off-guard when an interminably long red finally changes.
It takes a smart city to make cars truly autonomous
Artificial intelligence is driving the autonomous car. Coupled with robust computers, automobiles of the future will be more powerful than any other device we own. But they'll only be as powerful as their surrounding allows. If your vehicle doesn't know about a traffic jam along its route, like its human counterparts, it'll get stuck in gridlock. That's where connectivity comes in. When self-driving cars hit the road, they'll not only be computing juggernauts but also sharing data with everything all the time.
Self-driving cars to prove their mettle on an Ohio highway
When you think of American states that are crucial to the future of transportation, you probably think of California, Michigan and maybe Nevada. Ohio, however, is determined to put itself on the map. Thanks to a mix of federal and local funds, the state is wiring a 35-mile portion of Route 33 for vehicle-to-infrastructure communication tests. Ideally, this will solve traffic issues by helping connected and self-driving cars talk to both highway systems and each other. With enough test data, these smarter cars could both take better advantage of the available lanes and drive in closely-packed platoons.
Audi's new traffic-light countdown is the first step to smarter cities
As I get closer to the intersection, a countdown starts on the dashboard. The light is currently green, but the new Audi I'm driving tells me it'll be 147 seconds before I make it through the junction. Sure enough, the light turns yellow, then red, and I come to a stop as the numbers tick off in reverse. Once it hits four, the timer disappears, and within a few seconds the light turns green. It seems like a trivial feature, a timer telling you when a traffic signal is about to change. But in practice, it's quite useful. More important, it's currently available in Las Vegas, a baby step toward a future where cars and cities talk to one another to reduce gridlock.
Audi cars will start talking to city traffic systems this fall
If you've ever been stuck at a red light that seems to last an eternity, you'll be happy to know that Audi announced that it's going to start work with municipalities to tell its cars when a light is about to turn green. The automaker says this is the first step in a Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) partnership with cities that will be launching this fall.
GM: A Cadillac that can (almost) drive itself is coming in 2016
We've talked a lot about autonomous driving developments like Google's self-driving car, but today in Detroit GM CEO Mary Barra is announcing her company's push to put similar technology in cars we can actually buy. Two years from now, Cadillac will launch an all-new car with its "Super Cruise" technology that not only holds your speed, but uses sensors to keep it in the middle of the lane, and can brake if necessary. We've ridden in a demo vehicle that could even steer to avoid obstacles, but what's coming is more limited (likely because of legal and insurance questions that have yet to be answered), and says it will provide comfort to "an attentive driver" -- hopefully with enough leeway for us to snap an in-traffic selfie or two.
