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Waymo and Cruise may soon offer autonomous rides and deliveries in California
Waymo and Cruise have asked California's DMV for permission to start charging for rides and deliveries with their autonomous vehicles in California.
Intel's Mobileye will test self-driving cars at up to 80 MPH in Germany
Intel’s Mobileye self-driving division has received regulatory approval to test its vehicles on German roads, Intel announced.
San Francisco aims to issue electric scooter permits next month
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) said this week that it is aiming to issue electric scooter permits next month, and the staff who have been reviewing the 12 permit applications will make their recommendations in the coming weeks. The move to require permits came after Bird, Spin and LimeBike unveiled their e-scooter sharing programs earlier this year, resulting in hundreds of scooters peppering public areas and taking up sidewalk space. They quickly became a nuisance and in April, the city told the three companies that they had to remove their scooters from the streets. Permit applications opened up soon thereafter.
Now California's DMV can allow fully driverless car testing
Automakers can now start testing fully driverless cars on California's roads. According to the state DMV's new regulations that became effective on April 2nd, it can now issue three types of autonomous vehicle testing permits. The first kind is the original one it approved years ago, which needs a driver behind the wheel, while the other two could pave the way for the release of Level 4 to 5 autonomous vehicles. See, the second type of permit it can dole out will allow automakers to test fully driverless vehicles, and the third will give the companies permission to deploy them.
Elon Musk gets Hyperloop digging permit in Washington, DC
Last year, the internet needled Elon Musk for tweeting he had verbal approval to dig a Hyperloop tunnel in Washington, DC, because officials said they granted no such thing. Now, however, The Boring Company does have an honest-to-gosh written permit, albeit only for some preliminary site preparation and excavation, the Washington Post reports.
Uber will keep testing self-driving cars in SF without a permit (updated)
Uber just announced its self-driving cars are available on San Francisco streets, but they're already caught up in controversy. That's because California regulators insist it needs a permit for testing, while Uber -- true to its extralegal history -- insists it doesn't. Autonomous lead Anthony Levandowski said on a call that "we respectfully disagree with the California Department of Motor Vehicles legal interpretation of today's autonomous regulations, in particular that Uber needs a testing permit to operate its self-driving cars in San Francisco."
Uber and Lyft officially allowed to operate in Nevada
Nevada's Transportation Authority has granted both Uber and Lyft permits to operate in the state, a few days after approving new rules for ride-hailing services. Those include having to pay administrative fees and to stick decals onto cars that are part of the companies' fleets. That doesn't mean you can hail a ride from either app right now, though: neither company has a firm launch date yet. They still have to deal with Clark County officials who refuse to let the companies run their business until they have the proper license. Problem is, the county doesn't even have a licensing category for ride-sharing/hailing services yet.
Hawaii clears land use for the Thirty Meter Telescope, construction to start in 2014
The Thirty Meter Telescope has been under development for more than a decade, but the sheer amount of land needed on Hawaii's Mauna Kea for its namesake main mirror has proved problematic: locals have formally challenged the multi-university effort over concerns that it might damage both the environment and natives' heritage. Regardless of which stance you take on the issue, the project is going forward now that the state's Board of Land and Natural Resources has granted an official land permit. The move clears an optical and near-infrared telescope with nine times the coverage area of its peers, and three times the sharpness. That's enough to observe light from 13 billion years ago as well as put a heavy focus on tracking extrasolar planets, including planets in the making. Any impact on science or Mauna Kea will have to wait when construction doesn't even start until April 2014, although we're hoping that environmental care requirements attached to the permit will let us appreciate both the early universe and modern-day Earth in equal measure.
